Dr Elma Kay agrees with Juan. She's the Managing Director of the Belize Maya Forest Trust, and well as a Scientific advisor to CITES.
But, most importantly when she was at the University of Belize Environmental Research Institute, she worked with the Economic Development Council in the office of the Prime Minister and Stanford University to create a Sustainable Development Plan for the Caracol Chiquibul Mountain Pine Ridge complex.
She says that plan used modeling to analyze the watershed value of the Forest in that area. And the plan made it clear that the Western Hardwoods are not suitable for logging. Speaking with us via Zoom, she told us more:
Dr. Elma Kay, MD - Bze Maya Forest Trust, Chair - BNN:
"it is not advisable, Jules. In my opinion, it is not advisable to grant such a license."
"the Sustainable Development Plan recommends that that specific area to Western Hardwoods in the Mountain Pine Ridge are actually, used for recreation lightly and conserve for water quality value, water quality services. One of the most impactful things that could happen if that area is logged, or that stands to happen, is that communities downstream, such as San Antonio Village in Cayo, they depend on their water source from the mountain Pine Ridge."
"This could affect those communities greatly because you're changing the land use and you're causing a change in flows, in potential water quality and that's where then those people that count on the services of that area, the water services, right?"
"But I think what is particularly worrisome about this area and, I would really, really appeal to the ministry to, reconsider, you know, if they're still considering this, this, this license as, as you have, as you had shared with the public, because of the terrain, the steep terrain, it makes it even more impactful. So it is a high impact area."
"And so you can actually see in the map what are the proposed development activities for each area. And definitely logging is not recommended for this area based on the water quality and water resource services that the area provides."
