And over those two days, those village leaders expressed their contempt for the FPIC protocol and for communal land rights system in general. Here's the first Acalde of Midway:
Oscar Canelo, 1st Alcalde - Midway Village
"Communalism was not really what our people wanted. When we look at the laws that are coming out, and FPIC is a good example. The FPIC protocol is a good example. It is lengthy, it is too advanced for us, too much papers to read, too much papers to sign."
"At first, before the FPIC, you could have made a little bit of money from the natural resources and harvest the little logs and sell it commercially to send your children to school. But now our people are unable to do that."
"Now we see laws coming out that will not work for us. FPIC charges our people only for customary use and the exorbitant prices that they put on these trees, to harvest trees only for home use are so enormous that we cannot afford those payments."
"Before they used to only charge maybe an $8 per tree. Now we are at $28, we are at $32 per tree. And I think these are laws that will never work for our people. So we reject these laws."
