The Association of Protected Areas Management known as APAMO is tonight sounding the alarm about excessive logging - especially illegal logging - like the kind we showed you in Boston Village on Friday.
A press release says, quote, "Recent field reports and enforcement data indicate that these activities are accelerating forest loss, undermining decades of conservation efforts, and threatening the ecological integrity of some of our most sensitive landscapes." End quote.
Vice Chair of APAMO, Maya Choc says they had a duty to speak up:
Maya Choc, APAMO Vice Chair
"As you know the Association Of Protected Areas Management Organizations is an association with all protected areas managers and as protected area managers we have been seeing an increase in illegal logging and the impacts that it has on the environment. So I think as guardians of the Forest of Belize I would say we believe it is our duty and responsibility to speak out against things as such."
"I think when we look at the country we are still recovering from the last wildfires and we have seen the devastating effects that it has been having on the country and now to see things such as illegal logging happening now I think we really need to revisit and we need to look at our policies and we need to meet and discuss what is the way forward to ensure that we are acting in accordance with our strategies and we are meeting our goals and objectives as a country."
"And I think government really needs to look at what illegal logging is doing and it is really stopping them from getting royalties you know established sustainable forestry groups pay their royalties and pay their taxes and contribute towards the economic growth of the country and we will continue as an association to advocate and we will continue to speak out against these things. And we really call on the government to meet with us talk to us and let us discuss and see how we can work together to stop these illegal activities from happening."
"And as co-managers we are the ones that are looking and fundraising and I think what the government is doing undermines all of the investment and all the work we do as co-managers in this country. And so for us we will continue to advocate you know and do the best that we can, we know what is happening I think this is a small country and we know what time these logs move out we know that having checkpoints during the day does not work because logs don't travel in the day they travel in the middle of the night, 2:00, 3:00 in the morning and I think this is why we call to dialogue and let us see how we can work together right because at the end of the day it is to benefit the entire country you know."
The release cites national land cover assessments which show that Belize's forest cover has declined continuously over the last 25 years from approximately 70% to 62%.
They also note that illegal logging has already led to de-reservation of some important forest reserves.
