Belize’s relations with Guatemala have been complicated, and often bitter, for many reasons, going back hundreds of years. As recently as twenty or thirty years ago there were real concerns that Guatemala might invade Belize, which Guatemala has never really recognized as a nation–Guatemala has always claimed that most of the land in BZ belongs to Guatemala.
And then there’s the invasion by looters and poachers.
If you have about half an hour, this 2009 documentary about an expedition exposing the looting and poaching issues in Belize’s Chiquibul Preserve is very well done, even if you don’t catch but 10 minutes to get a grasp of what’s at stake.
Following the vid is a more recent report of an exhibition that exposes the issues with Guatemala from Tony Rath, a world-class photographer . . .
A Tony Rath photo of a waterfall in the Belize’s gorgeous Chiquibul Forest, a huge preserve that is home to exotic animals, Mayan ceremonial sites in the many elaborate cave systems and all the wonders that Mother Nature has to offer.
Poor people from Guatemala’s poorest regions aren’t just crossing the border into the U.S.
They’ve been sneaking into the rainforests of Belize Chiquibul Park for years, looting and stealing and destroying the fragile environment and its exotic birds and wildlife.
Tony Rath, a trained marine biologist and longtime adventurist, is a world-renowned photographer and videographer who first visited Belize in 1979 and took up permanent residency here in 1988.
His gorgeous photos and underwater videos of all the natural wonders of Belize never cease to impress and astound.
He’s also not too shabby a writer.
He recently penned an essay, complete with a package of photos, about his participation in a reconnaissance expedition into Belize’s Chiquibul National Park–that natural wonderland that is under siege by neighboring Guatemalens living in utter poverty who are essentially raping the land and stealing Belizean treasures to cash in on them.
-
“The rangers,” Tony explains in his reporting, “call them “Xateros”–poverty stricken people from Guatemala risking everything to harvest fronds from the xate (pronounced shatay) palm tree for the floral industry.
“Wikipedia says 400 million xate stems are exported to North America and Europe every year. Populations of the palm in Mexico and Guatemala have been over collected, so now Xateros illegally cross the border from Guatemala to cut the abundant leaf in Belize. But as we observed, xate is only one resource under pressure from the Xateros. Picture a pristine landscape defiled by illegal logging; looting of archaeological sites; extraction of gold; hunting of wildlife; harvesting scarlet macaw chicks for the pet trade; milpa farming; marijuana plantations and even survey lines complete with fluorescent-tip orange stakes.”
![Tony Rath on the illegal logging he and rangers found: "This is what illegal logging looks like, #Chiquibul, #Belize. The poachers load the best cuts on horseback, leaving 80% of the mahogany to rot. We encountered 5 more of these crime scenes on the road in - all fresh; then the poachers would fell trees to block the road so we couldn't follow them to the [Guatemala] border."](https://deaniemckay.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/10690246_10152650891200792_8997100079522150897_n.jpg)
Tony Rath on the illegal logging he and rangers found: “This is what illegal logging looks like, #Chiquibul, #Belize. The poachers load the best cuts on horseback, leaving 80% of the mahogany to rot. We encountered 5 more of these crime scenes on the road in – all fresh; then the poachers would fell trees to block the road so we couldn’t follow them to the [Guatemala] border.”
Here’s what Tony was up to on this expedition:
-
“I was taking part in a reconnaissance expedition into the deepest part of the Chiquibul National Park (Chiquibul) to lay the groundwork for a larger expedition next year. The Chiquibul is the largest protected area in Belize covering more than 265,000 acres of tropical broadleaf forests in the southern Cayo District. To the east lies the nearly 150,000 acre Chiquibul Forest Reserve, and to the south is the 100,000 acre Bladen Nature Reserve. The great Maya site of Caracol lies in the middle of the park. Doyle‘s Delight, the highest point in Belize (3675 feet), occurs on the southern edge of the park. The Chiquibul is also home to one of the last nesting sites of the scarlet macaw in Belize. And an estimated 540,000-square-foot Chiquibul Cave System, the largest in Belize and the longest in Central America, is a treasure trove of geological and archaeological wonders. In 2007, the Belize Forest Department and a local non-governmental organization (NGO) – Friends of Conservation and Development (FCD) – entered into a co-management agreement signifying for the first time an actual management of this unique and pristine landscape.”
Read the whole report, complete with those fabulous photos the master takes, here–it was quite an adventure.
The photos deserve a SPECTACULAR! Thanks for the Belizean eco-lesson mi amigo!
I’m a little late to the game on this post, but I’m often staggered by the problems countries such as Belize face. It’s not enough that much of the populace suffers from grinding poverty, but the fact that their natural resources are being stripped away at a devastating rate is particularly dispiriting.
I probably should update this because shortly after I posted it, a very young security guard at the up popular Mayan site was murdered in cold blood by a couple of the Guatemalens, which finally brought the longstanding issue to a head and aroused Beizeans to such outrage that the government finally stationed Army bases up there. And to the credit of the Guatemalen government, they finally response in a positive way to the Belizean outrage and the two countries are now doing joint Army patrols up there. And just last week at a summit of Central American countries, Belize’s prime minister and Guatemala’s prez hugged after reaching agreements on a number of matters–quite a dramatic turnaround considering the two countries have had strained if not outright hostile relations ever since the Brits left and Guatemala has claimed that most of the land in BZ is actually Guatemalen territory. The tension goes back hundreds of years and tensions tend to do in countries hostile to each other. It’s hard for us in America to understand that historical disputes and bad blood in some countries never really end. I mean, we got along pretty good with the Brits after we whipped out and all was soon forgotten and forgiven ya know?
Considering that we had a 3,000-plus mile border with British Canada for nearly a century after we got our independence and except for the 1812-1815 blip it’s been pretty harmonious, at least compared to many other borders, it is rather remarkable. I suppose the British had so much territory that in the rest of the world that they didn’t want to tangle with us, and we were content to push the Indians around, rather than go up against the British a third time.
Glad that perhaps another hotspot might finally be cooling down some. It is indeed a major turnaround considering how long Belize and Guatemala have been at odds.
Yeah, we still have the sometimes historical strains with our Indian friends we pushed around–witness the passions against the “Washington Redskins” motto. History to some happened only yesterday.