And over in San Pedro, the Ambergris Caye Citizens for Sustainable Development have concerns of their own. They wrote a letter to Ministers Andre Perez and Orlando Habet saying that in 2020, they'd been approached by the Blue Economy Ministry with the possibility of the organization co-managing the Bacalar Chico Marine Reserve. Fast forward to this year, they found out that the job had been given to the Sarteneja Alliance for Conservation and Development.
Now, the ACCSD is confused and concerned that they were simply dropped without explanation and consultation even though the marine reserve sits in their backyard. Today, we spoke with the chairman via telephone.
Voice of: Jose "Elito" Arceo, Chairman, ACCSD
"We were approached by the Ministry of the Blue Economy a couple years back about the possibility of co-managing Bacalar Chico National Park and we met several times with them and their technical team and that's how we actually started the process. We were told on their sides that we would actually manage the park being that also we are an NGO, but this island is our home and that process went about and we submit a draft proposal within a certain period of time amongst other stuff with several visits to the site to see how we can improve both the land and the sea part of the marine reserve and that's how it went down. It's been dormant for a while, because after a few meetings, they left us to contact certain persons in various departments and our phone calls
and emails were never answered. So we were shock as to why that happened. We only found out through the media of course that the park had been given to another organization which is in Sarteneja. we were in complete shock why did this happened, why there was no consultation with the local stakeholders right here in our home in San Pedro Ambergris Caye."
"Its very important, it sits in our community. This is our backyard for us. We are the largest visitors to that area. Of course, we should have a say in it. For me, I live right around in the area as well and close to the park. How come the community will not get involved? How would you completely disregard the members of the community that are the largest visitors to the park and exclude them completely from what is going on?"
The ACCSD is hoping to get a response soon from the ministry.
