Peter EspeutI SPENT last week in Belize, in Central America, a country of many nations, torn between cultural contacts with the English-speaking Caribbean, and geographical links with her Spanish-speaking neighbours. As you enter Belize City there is an avenue of flags CARICOM and Central American. They are consciously trying to walk a thin line.
Belize is twice the size of Jamaica with one-tenth of our population. Some would say there is a lot of empty space in Belize, waiting to be 'developed'. Others would say that much of Belize is still in its natural state, begging for protection from 'developers'. The government of Belize is committed to environmental conservation. They have a Ministry of the Environment and Natural Resources all by itself, because they recognise the conflicts of interest which can arise (especially in a small country) when the environment portfolio is combined with housing or tourism or lands.
We stayed in Punta Gorda in the south (Toledo District), just by the Guatemalan border and within sight of Honduras. The occasion was strategic planning (supported by the Nature Conservancy) for the management of the 332,820 hectare Maya Mountain Marine Area Transect (MMMAT), a huge area about 30 per cent of the land area of Jamaica.
The MMMAT is itself zoned into 10 Protected Areas (239,117 ha) each separately declared by the Government of Belize with its own management plan. The Belize Government does not manage these areas themselves, but enters into Memoranda of Agreement with NGOs for management. NGOs working in the area include the Toledo Institute for Development and the Environment (TIDE) who were our hosts, and the Belize Audobon Society (BAS).
This approach is similar to Jamaican government policy which calls for about 25 per cent of Jamaica's land area to fall within protected areas, and for the management of these areas to be delegated to NGOs. So far in Jamaica, the management for two protected areas has been delegated to Jamaican NGOs.
The management problems in the MMMAT are mostly similar to ours, with a few we don't have. Like us, their upland forests are threatened by slash-and-burn agriculture, deforestation and erosion which cause further problems downstream, especially with coral reefs. Industrial agriculture (mostly citrus) has diverted the flow of some rivers, interrupting important natural processes. Sedimentation, nutrient pollution from fertilisers and sewage, and dynamite fishing are a major threat to the marine environment.
But unlike us, what complicates the marine conservation situation in the MMMAT is that the stresses come not only from Belize, but also from Guatemala and Honduras. TIDE has had to enter into a coalition with environment and development NGOs from those countries to protect the southern part of the Belize Barrier Reef, the second longest in the world! Thankfully we are spared that problem, although garbage with French and Spanish labelling does wash up on Jamaican beaches from countries to the east of us.
Some 3,000 ha within the upland forest of the MMMAT is reserved for the Maya people, the indigenous people of the area. The Mopan Maya and Kekchi Maya have resided in Central America long before the arrival of Europeans and the emergence of independent states. They (similar to the Maroons of Jamaica who also live in a reserve) are semi-autonomous, and determine their own land-use practices. Unlike the Maroons, the Mayans have always practiced shifting cultivation, and are sort of nomadic.
Unrest and lack of economic opportunity in Guatemala and Honduras has increased migration into Belize, causing further environmental and social problems. Mopan and Kekchi Maya from Belize tend to welcome their migrating brothers, and allocate them land in the Maya Reserve.
Again, thankfully being an island, we don't have these migration problems, although I know personally that (undocumented) fishers from Latin America have taken up residence in some Jamaican fishing areas, making liaisons with Jamaican women.
A vengeance
At the beginning of the Site Conservation Plan for the MMMAT which we discussed in Punta Gorda, is this quote from The Future of Tropical Ecology by Dan Jantzen which I would like to share with you:
"Humans were invented in the tropics. Some left, and then some returned with a vengeance. We have less than one human lifespan to determine whether the tropics will be simply a very large pasture for human inhabitants, or whether it will also contain some rich and rewarding habitats in which humans can fully develop their mental and sensory potential.
In the end, the future population of the earth will inherit and guard no more of tropical species and wildlands than we set aside in our lifetime. What we conserve of the tropics is all that humanity will ever have."
There are people in Belize and Jamaica in both the public and private sectors who would like nothing more than to destroy the last ecosystem and exterminate the last wild species in the name of profit and greed. Thankfully in both Jamaica and Belize, there are also those in both the public and private sectors who believe in investing in the environment, in setting aside critical habitat for our natural heritage (e.g. marine and land turtles, the blue-tailed galliwas, our rare fish-eating bat, our three endemic snakes, crocodiles, our birds and the iguana) to ensure that we do not leave future Jamaicans poorer off than we now are. Where do you stand?
Peter Espeut is a sociologist and executive director of an environment and development NGO.
