The Friends for Development and Conservation now have a new ranger base after years of being at Tapir Camp. It's part of the FCD team's big dream for conservation and they needed this new space to make it happen. Jaleeza Roberts attended the opening ceremony and files this report:
Today, the Friends for Conservation and Development ranger base was officially relocated to an area adjacent to the Guacamallo bridge. This will help them to continue their research in the Chiquibul National Park and Mountain Pine Ridge Area. The President of the FCD board explained why the move was necessary:
Susanna Vanzie, President - FCD Board
"The move was necessary. Um, gosh, that was, it, it, it took a while. So now I have to go back to my memory bank. Uh, that was maybe about two, it was like a two to three year process. Um, and it was more in terms of, I think the department was wanting to align certain things so that, um, you know, FCD is more with, within the park and not necessarily in the reserve and the, the, the, um, the Tapir camp is in the reserve. Um, and so I think it came from that, um, came down from there. And so we just had to work through the whole process."
And while alignment is one issue, the Prime minister spoke of the constant threats over the past few years:
John Briceno, Prime Minister
"One of the biggest one is human encroachment which creates the biggest problems not only because they would clear up 5 acres of land to be able to develop but in many instances they would light fire to clean it up and then you see the fire would escape from them and then we have thousands of acres being destroyed. In my flight here there are many areas where there were pine trees now there are fern because the fern grows faster than the pine trees so after fire so it overcomes the pine trees and so the pine trees can't grow and for us to be able to fix that and I think we probably have to do it manually where we have the seedlings and we clear up an area because they're taller than the fern tree so these are some of the challenges and when you think about the importance of water, this is the most important water shed that we have in the country we have to ensure, we have to find ways to be able to protect it because it's like somebody in Belize city they open the tap and they get water and they don't think about where that water comes and a lot of that water comes from right here out of the Chiquibul."
Executive Director Rafael Manzanero is requesting help from regulatory agencies to have FCD create a finance generating mechanism:
Rafael Manzanero, Executive Director - FCD
"I basically am requesting from the regulatory agencies to assist us, to enable us, and to work with us to develop a finance generating mechanism and a generating stream. That will help sustain the ongoing work of FCD. The park manager has described that we have contained and are on our road to the recovery of the park, but there is yet so much to be done in terms of addressing threats. Because we operate in public lands, we can only do activities with the government's support and endorsement. We have all the energy to explore and discuss with the agencies any viable possibilities. We have been asked for more than 10 years, particularly from PACT to have always been with us, that we need to identify generating stream. And so we want to do it along with the agencies, like what I mentioned, these are public lands PM. So we do need that support and endorsement if we are going to pursue any of those streams of finances. My other recommendation is the need for revisiting the sustainable development plan for the region. The area has changed as how you can see."
"And there are new challenges being faced. If we are to develop this area as an economic node, the area must be secure not only from Guatemalans, but also from within Belize. We are observing a higher number of visitors in these areas. And of course, garbage and wildlife kills are prone to also increase."
Jaleeza Roberts, 7 News.
