Monkey River, it's a village in the Toledo District, where residents have been forced to watch for two generations as their homes have been lost bit by bit, consumed by the slow incoming tides.
It's a tragedy that until now, man has been powerless to stop. But now, efforts at shoring up Monkey River's seafront have begun and it's all at the hands of Eworth Garbutt and his crew, the same crew who re-built silk Caye, bringing it back from a spit of sand at the sway of the sea to a fully formed island paradise dotted with coconut trees.
But Monkey River is a whole other monster, a coastline that some would argue is much too wide and wild to be saved by rocks and sandbags. This morning we put that question to the man trying to save the village but he had some interesting counterarguments.
Here's more:
In November of 2022, we took you to the southern village of Monkey River to show you how the spectre of the sea was haunting the present and threatening the future of one of Belize's first settlements.
But today almost eight months later, one man says he's exorcised that specter and driven it back to the depths where it belongs.
That man is none other than Eworth Garbutt the leader of the Silk Caye rebuild and by now something of a grassroots erosion expert.
Eworth Garbutt, Community Activist
"And fi?i, Jules, that you are in water three foot deep, minimum to four foot and 7 months later you are standing three feet above water. That will rate the success of what this is. So we have done nothing different in using the same crocus sack, which the military uses if it wants to build bridges or block water."
"The skeleton was made out of the crocus sack. That's to line up. Geotecs. We use the chain link, then hand placed stone, it's like the old Mayan temples. I think some of them are still standing. It's not any excavator bulldozer vibrating the bottom of the sea and doing this. Hand. Every single one of our rocks has a fingerprint."
Still, Eworth's critics might say he hasn't bested the tides he's only held them at bay.
Jules Vasquez:
"Critics say that it looks great but it will be eroded, it's going away, because that is the movement of the sea and the sand, and the same thing that emptied it out before, will empty it out again."
Eworth Garbutt, Community Activist
"You familiar with the word "climate resilient" used a lot in Belize. Do you know the definition?"
"Climate resilience, it's simply, successfully coping with managing the impact from climate change. And I will say this in creole on the bottom - from stopping it from bleeding out until it's dead. You actually want it to stop right where it is."
And that's Eworth's claim to fame, while other experts and scientists look on and posit about the end of life in the village, he's taken a practical stance to rebuild the beach and delay the loss of these villagers' homes.
Eworth Garbutt, Erosion Expert
"But I travel da whole place with my eyes wide open and I would have liked to see these brilliant brains who are now criticizing climate resilience, because that's what that is. Everything only lasts for a time, so I would like to use that word more broadly, "for a long time." Because it's not for a time, those words are critical, critical, what we are doing is for a long time, Mr Jules."
"It almost seems, and if I am wrong, I almost say this because I want them to prove me wrong. What we're doing is stopping those people from the mission."
"Their job is to prove that Monkey River was in the history books, and it's going right you know? They are proving that. Let nature take its course and make all of this happen."
To date, Eworth and his crew have re-built 8,100 sq feet of total beach area at what can't have been a minimal cost, but he says he's not in it for any monetary reward.
Eworth Garbutt, Erosion Expert
"My best paycheck I ever get eena my life is seeing how grateful those people are knowing they are not going nowhere. Even the next pink alright where they are. This thing was in water, now we are 45 feet from the water and the beach noh di stop grow."
"We have like 45 (feet), the seawall itself is 180 feet long and from the building, out to the end of the seawall is 45 feet, so if you do that you are at 180 by 45."
"The big smart man will come (and say) ":down below it will eat away." You get what I'm saying? And who told them they are wrong? Nobody. Nobody told them they are wrong. So just like how you fixed the front."
Jules Vasquez
"You fix that part."
Eworth Garbutt, Erosion Expert
"Oh jeez! You make it sound so easy. You frightened me, mein."
We asked one of those big smart men, Dr. Colin Young, for his opinion last week when we caught him at a national strategy dialogue for Climate Change. Here's how he weighed in on Eworth's efforts:
Colin Young, Executive Director, CCCCC
"We have to do what we can, when we can, right that is we cannot just sit by and do nothing and I think any effort that is done to try to slow what is a continuous process I think has to be commended, I do believe however thought, that sometimes we have to ensure that we are not doing Mal adaptation, that what we are doing is not worsening the situation downwind."
"You can never blame people for trying to save thier infrastructure, save thier beaches, to save land. I think we have to try to see how we can help to ensure that whatever intervention is made is going to be sustainable in the long run."
"So, Mr Grabutt and others it's almost like Sisyphus, you know you are pushing the rock up the hill um and the moment you stop, you know it's going to roll back down the hill but I want to and I would like to commend anybody who is trying to stop what is clearly going to be a, it's already a big problem and will become a bigger one."
Jules Vasquez:
"Colin Young says that's what you're doing building up back this beach. It won't last. You're just pushing the stone up the hill. You're pushing the stone, but the stone will roll back on you. That's the myth of Sisyphus."
Eworth Garbutt, Erosion Expert
"I think the man is correct. Some of that is very, very true. The stone will roll back, but he is afraid it rolls back on him! I would never wish, he is an intelligent guy and I would never want the stone to roll back, but if it should roll back on anyone, I will have to pull the man out of the way."
Garbutt says that until Belizeans get rid of their "not my job attitude." feats like these will remain either hard or impossible to accomplish.
