If you watch this newscast, you’ve probably seen the ad for Works Junior Minister Edmund ‘Clear the land’ Castro. It’s his progress report, and it boasts about his success in building an access road across the Crooked Tree Lagoon to an area called Black Burn. Residents from the community and surrounding areas have been using Black Burn to do farming but previously it was only accessible by horse and dory.
So Castro built a road which he says will open a gateway to economic opportunity.but as they say the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and according to environmentalists, the road to Black Burn is riddled with environmental violations. Today, the Forestry Department issued a stop order on the project. Why? Well, according to the Belize Audubon Society there is concern tonight because the work commenced with no environmental impact assessment. And, you’ll recall Crooked Tree has been declared a wildlife sanctuary.
According to advocacy officer, Tanya Williams Thompson, the first thing that developers should have gotten is clearance from the Forestry Department. And going back to 1983 when the Crooked Tree causeway was built, there were impacts at that time.
Tanya Williams Thompson, Advocacy Programme Manager – BAS
“But from what we know from the community there were impacts from the wetlands. I believe the water was stagnant on one side, killing off trees on the other side and creating a very unsafe situation for the community in terms of the access to water and access to foods. Those are some of the concerns that we have.”
Jacqueline Godwin,
Is the Belize Audubon Society against this project?
Tanya Williams Thompson,
“We have never ever made that position that we are against the project. Our position has always been and will continue to be that we should have sound
sustainable development in Belize no matter where the project is occurring and we agree that our communities need to improve their economic conditions and so we support the goal of the project in that sense but we must ensure that we go through the proper planning process.
Well the Forest Department which has the legal mandate under the National Parks System act to govern protected areas have given the project a stop order and as far as we are aware the project has stopped. BAS is discussing this project with the Ministry of Natural Resources and we hope that the next step will be to go through the environmental clearance process.
As far as we can ascertain, they did not approach the forest department on this project. We did not see a plan of the project as well so we are not sure who has the plan for the project or who authorize the development to go ahead.
As far as I know there was an excavator on site, they have dug up the lagoon already so some impacts have already been caused. As far as we know we are not aware of what the long term impacts will be if that area is left as it is so it is important as well to look at the study from that point of view.
They have reached the end of the lagoon side but they have not really started building the road that is when the stop order was issued so as far as we know that is where the development is at this time. At this point it is dry, the lagoon, we are in the dry season so the lagoon is pretty low. The problem will occur when we start having the rainy season because the lagoon play a very important part in holding the water during the rainy season and during any flood, any high stage floods so whatever long term effects that this has caused we may see in the rainy season either to Crooked Tree or to Belize City.”
Jacqueline Godwin,
What will be the effects?
Tanya Williams Thompson,
“We are not sure at the moment and that is why the Belize Audubon Society’s position is that this project has to go through the proper planning process. There are general things that can occur when you develop roads within wetlands. You could have drainage in the lower part of the wetland or you can have flooding in the upper part of the wetland but we are not sure at this point what will happen.”
When 7NEWS contacted the Area Representative Edmund ‘Clear the Land” Castro he was about to go into a meeting with representatives from the Department of Environment. When asked if he ever met with BAS who are the co managers of the Crooked Tree Wildlife Sanctuary and sought to get authority from the Forestry Department, Castro declined to comment only telling_ 7NEWS_ that he met with the people from the community who gave him full support and he proceeded with the project.
According to Castro the road has already been built and he is optimistic that the stop order will be lifted so he can be given clearance to proceed with phase two of the project which is installing the culverts. According to Castro the project needs to proceed as quickly as possible while we are still in the dry season because the rainy season starts in four to six weeks time. Castro says on Wednesday he plans to take representatives from DOE on a field trip to see the work that has been completed.
