NICH says cave had to be protected
In last night’s newscast the former landowner of the area surrounding the Barton Creek cave, Mike Bogaert, claimed that his land was appropriated by government without compensation, and that government workers had threatened him with guns. Today, the Director for the Institute of Archaeology, Dr. Jaime Awe, spoke to News 5 about the attempts of both the Ministry of Natural Resources, and now the Ministry of Tourism and Culture, to work out a co-management agreement with Bogaert. Awe says for almost four years government tried without success to arrive at an agreement that would split the fees charged for access to the cave with Bogaert and allow the government to protect and monitor access to the cave, which contains archaeological remains. He says the Ministry of Tourism was forced to go to Cabinet and request that the land be appropriated, and that the Ministry of Natural Resources is attempting to work out compensation, but there are still some legal issues between Bogaert’s attorney and the ministry. He reminds the public that all archaeological sites, including caves, ultimately belong to the people of Belize and need protection.
Dr. Jaime Awe, Director, Institute of Archaeology
“Why are we doing this? Well, like I said, all caves, all archaeological sites are the property of the people of Belize. It is our responsibility at the Institute of Archaeology to manage these sites, to manage them responsibly and for the country. It is also under the laws of Belize, legal to provide access to everyone. We cannot be exclusive of access. By us establishing a presence out there, and when we demarcated the land Mr. Bogart had a structure in the area that we were going to claim, but in good faith we decided, no we should not take that area with the structure, so we bypasses it to ensure, one, that we did not take his structure and also to allow him access to the stream and hence, access to the cave. We are out there, we have a small building for the caretakers to live in, we do charge a fee and the caretakers are in there, because Barton Creek Cave has had a long history of destructive activity. There are human remains in that cave that in my personal project surveyed, recorded and that were subsequently removed from their original context and placed in areas so that tourists could see them better. That is not the way to go about doing research or doing cave tourism. Our caretakers are out there to ensure, one, that you don’t have five hundred people in the cave at the same time. Caves are very fragile environments, and if we don’t manage them and if we don’t limit the number of people going in at any one time, we will destroy this resource. And if we destroy that resource, nobody will want to go visit Barton Creek cave again. So our presence there is for conservation purposes and for the proper management of a natural, cultural resource that belongs to the Belize.”
Awe says that there was a time when police did accompany Ministry of Natural Resource personnel to the site after Bogaert illegally removed survey markers posted on the land. He says that as far as he knows, however, no guns were ever pointed at Bogaert.
