Turning now to other news out of the Toledo District, residents from the Garifuna village of Barranco staged a protest at around 4:00 this evening. That's because they received information that the government has granted logging concessions to private individuals without consulting the community or seeking their consent.
They take issue with the permits being given especially because members of the community have applied and failed to get permits to the forest surrounding their village.
Our colleagues from PGTV News was at the protest, and here's what two of the protesters had to say:
Villager
"Injustice have been done to us as a people and I think it needs to stop, its time and over time. Too much time the big people get the concessions, mash up the small people - we can't live with that no more. It's too much and we can't handle it, we need to make it stop. We call on the government to do something for us, because this is too much. We are suffering. People came out because people are concerned and this is just part of the people who was supposed to come out, but due to the whether some of them can't make it here today."
Reporter
"We have some very heavy equipment; excavator and bulldozer and stuff in the back, do you know that these stuffs were going to your village?"
Villager
"No sir. Last night they came like a thief in the night. I don't know if it's to get the people blind or something, by the time the people wake up, they already gone about their business and we just will hear machine in the jungle. Thanks to the almighty we have people who were out and they reach out to us
and we ask these guys to hold back their movement until the community knows what is going on in the area, because the community wasn't consulted. We didn't know that they were giving out concession while community people applied for concession. Thats a no go."
Villager
"My people they put us in there to work for them, not to betrayed them. I am not in support of that. This logging concession needs to stop."
Persistent reports are that the logging permits were granted to politically connected individuals.
