And while the churches fight for the referendum, the residents and tourism stakeholders of Placencia are in a battle against nature to save their only island. The Silk Cayes were once made up of three islands but today, only one remains, and the villagers are determined to save it from being swallowed by erosion.
They've been making plans for a while and over the long weekend, they took action. It culminated in a massive community effort, supported by peninsula businesses and with senior sweat equity from villagers who want to save one of the few remaining islands in the area that isn't private. But things didn't go exactly as planned when the Coast Guard showed up to shut down the Silk Caye saviors.
With the help of PGTV, Courtney Menzies put together a recap of the incident and has this story.
Eworth Garbutt, Tour Guide
"We would have had to do a Silk Caye, we will take out the Caye trip, because it will be a Silk trip because no caye will be there."
South Silk Caye is vanishing right before the eyes of the Placencia residents. The island is being swallowed by the sea, just like the two neighbouring islands that used to be there.
And the Placencia residents refuse to just sit and watch it disappear. On Labor Day weekend, they set out in their boats to try and save and lone island by building a break wall around the perimeter to prevent even more erosion. And it was all done with manual labour. They were led by tour guide, Eworth Garbutt.
Eworth Garbutt, Tour Guide/Concerned Resident
"This wasn't just a kneejerk approach, we've been doing studies, we've been doing our consultation, but not with the regular game, not the same way. I'll give you a great example, you see the guy down there Jaime, he has spent a lot of time in school. He went all the way to standard 3, so it's been lots of days of his life in school. The engineering skills that he has, combine with the other expert like Mr. Albert and different guys who know what they are doing. We've been consulting, we've been talking and I'll tell you further if you video and see what we have, we have sandbags, that's just to form what we are doing. If you use a blanket to block in the sand, so it doesn't come in and waste whatever you bring goes back into the environment we so depend on. The environmental people give you that you must use it once, one blanket. You know what we did - 4."
Alfredo Acosta, Placencia Resident
"This is unity at its best and it shows that as Belizeans we are still united and we could do a lot more together than separate each other and look at this, Placencia is making a statement - all the guys are out, no tour, everybody cancelled they tours for today, everybody is putting in their pound of flesh to save this."
Wendy Lemus, Member, Placencia Village Council
"Its hard to even explained about how I feel about this. I am here since yesterday; we want back home to sleep last night and came back this morning. To be honest with you how emotionally I feel looking at all these people working volunteering, nobody is getting pay for this, nobody is being forced to do what we are doing, we all are here volunteering and helping each other and I think whatever we are doing is benefit for everybody."
Ardie Young, Placencia Resident
"I am here and also I am the owner of Steam horse Dive Shop, the oldest operating dive shop. This is our livelihood. Nobody helps us, we have to do it ourselves. This is for our children, grandchildren, our great grandchildren. They can't be here, so we have to be here."
But while their efforts were noble, they were, in fact, illegal. And the coast guard came to break it up, stating that they were violating the fisheries law. He spoke to us about it today:
Eworth Garbutt, Tour Guide
"I saw the coast guard boat coming - and thought they would have put on glove to and start help, only to know that they were there with a verbal warrant saying that I need to go in, I need to quit this project and go in to Placencia and report to the police station and it was easy at least a hundred plus people there who said no man, if you carry worth, you carry all of us, cause it's a community effort."
Eventually, the coast guard stood down, but it isn't over yet. There may still be charges that Garbutt will have to face as he continues his work to save the last Silk Caye left.
