Earlier in the news you heard from Dr Louis Zabaneh as Transport Minister. But since he doubles as the Minister of Indigenous Affairs, we also asked him for an update regarding the draft proposal of the Maya land tenure.
Last we heard from MLA spokesperson Cristina Coc, she said they had reached a stalemate. But Dr Zabaneh told us they have a different perspective.
Dr Louis Zabaneh, Minister of Transport
"At that meeting, we spent quite a bit of time, looking at the fundamentals, the basics. For example, one of the things that we really, looked at very carefully is the meaning of what is Maya communal land rights. What does that really mean? We looked, of course, at the draft bill that the government has put forward and the formula on how to determine the demarcation of the areas around a village. In the first instance, you have, a formula in which, every member of the village would be allocated, five acres, not defined in a particular way, like a circle or whatever. The village would determine that. And then after that has been determined, The village then has a second phase in which it can say, well, we also go beyond this, area. And that is then clarified with the, with the government, and in particular in this case with our experts from the Ministry of Natural Resources. So we also discussed that, and from there end, they believe that that's a nonstarter. They felt that their methodology of determining what their boundaries are, is one in which that they have no space for negotiations, because, from their perspective, it is based on customary land tenure on the use of the forests for different things, for medicine, water sources, etc.. So we discussed that, that that's a difference that's there. However, what ultimately we're aiming at is to determine a land area. So we said, well, listen, one formula will yield a land area, The other formula will also yield a land area. Can't we come together and have a hybrid Where we are in a negotiation so we all can't get everything that we're asking for in totality, and maybe that's what she describe as a stalemate. for us We don't see that as a stalemate. We see that the fact that we had our first review panel meeting and the other one is scheduled for this coming Monday, I think we agreed to every two weeks we would be meeting so that we could look at all the different points in the draft legislation and then putting forth to the cabinet a final position based on the discussions. And then that goes on to the National Assembly."
