Environmentalists Still Waiting on Cabinet Response

John Burgos

Cabinet met on Tuesday and as we reported, the matter of the seismic testing in Belize’s waters, which many fear is the first step to exploring for oil in our deepest seas, was discussed. However, nothing has been issued on record as to Cabinet’s position. Today we spoke with the Belize Tourism Industry Association Executive Director John Burgos, who says they are awaiting a formal response as well, feverishly. However, there is confirmation that the seismic testing activities are on hold.

John Burgos, Executive Director, Belize Tourism Industry Association

“We have not received anything official; we have not tried to reach out to Minister Heredia as yet, we are gonna be looking to do that, in the near future, but we were hoping that they would be able to provide us a response without – because that was what was mentioned, that they were going to be discussing what transpired last week Wednesday and Thursday, with regard to the seismic testing. What we do know is that it has been canceled at this present moment; the ships are out of Belizean waters. But we need to know, we do know that some other ships were scheduled to come in later in November. But our stance is, we want to know what the Government’s way forward is gonna be with regard to seismic testing and oil exploration.”