People at cayes say tri-national park can work
In around a month and a half Belizeans are scheduled to vote on a set of proposals to end the Guatemalan claim to Belize. An important part of those proposals involves the disposition of six cayes which lie at the southern tip of Belize’s barrier reef. This weekend News 5’s Janelle Chanona, Brent Toombs and Stewart Krohn drove down to Placencia and jumped in a boat heading south. Destination? The Sapodillas.
Janelle Chanona, Reporting
To most Belizeans, the Sapodilla Range of cayes is no more than a collection of dots on a map. Established as a marine reserve in 1996, the group of islands is located twenty-eight miles south of Placencia and thirty-five miles east of Punta Gorda. Long acknowledged as among the nation’s prettiest cayes, the Sapodilla islands are at the centre of the proposals to settle the Guatemalan claim to Belize. The facilitators have proposed that the range’s six cayes: North East Sapodilla, Frank’s, Nicholas, Hunting, Lime and Sapodilla, also known as Ragged Caye, become part of a tri-national park managed jointly by Belize, Guatemala and Honduras.
As for who actually has sovereignty there is no debate. The cayes are all Belizean. Hunting and Sapodilla are crown land, but North East and Nicholas are leased to Lindsay Garbutt. Carrie Fairweather leases Frank’s Caye, while the estate of Lester Garbutt holds lease rights for Lime.
The cayes that make up the Sapodilla Range are among the most beautiful along the entire barrier reef. Every year, thousands of tourists make use of these islands, but most of them come from Guatemala.
Everyday, rain or shine, Belizean officials are ready to accept the “zarpes” or manifests from Guatemalan and Honduran vessels. Here, policemen act as immigration officers, recording the registration information of the boats and identity of the passengers.
Before exploring the reserve, the tourists pay ten dollars U.S. each to an official of the Belize Tourism Board.
Blayne Coleman, Tax Collector, Belize Tourism Board
“Well in the low season, sometime for a week, you don’t see any tourists at all. Like weekends…like this weekend right here, you have about twelve boats came in, that would be like forty people for the twelve boats.”
Janelle Chanona
“When does it get really busy?”
Blayne Coleman
“Like January, coming on to the Easter holiday, then it gonna be a lot of people.”
Janelle Chanona
“Like how many people?”
Blayne Coleman
“For Easter holiday and those holidays, five hundred, six hundred people.”
Most of whom are in a festive mood.
Boris Porta, Tourist, Guatemala City
“Oh, this place is marvellous, a paradise. That’s why Honduras, Belice and Guatemala like this place.”
Janelle Chanona
“What do you like best about it.”
Boris Porta
“The peace here…the beach, it’s really beautiful. Everything here is really beautiful. We hope that everything is going to be like now, all the time, not too much development because we don’t need that. Here is a naturalized place, okay.”
Jesus Canahuati, tourist, San Pedro Sula, Honduras
“This is an incredible paradise. It’s so nice. The fact that you know, it’s not habituated you know, tremendously gives us the opportunity to come to a location where we can relax, enjoy the scenery, go fishing, you always find fish here. Sometimes we camp and we stay overnight so you know this is paradise, this is beautiful.”
While trolling by wealthy tourists is an accepted part of life in the Sapodillas, locals contend that other visiting fishermen are hurting the livelihood of Belizeans.
Oliver Garbutt, Fly Fishing Guide
“Lot of them, Guatemaltecan they just come over to Belize in one or two day, they go to the minister and they get a license to fish just like me and that’s not right.”
Janelle Chanona
“So you see a lot of them around all the time?”
Oliver Garbutt
“A lot of them all the time. And they no have no season for the conch nor lobster, so they take any size and they take it any time of the year and that’s not right.”
Arthur “Ali” Westby, Tour Guide
“One day I went snorkelling on the reef right up there and I found two lobster traps. They had them hidden amongst the corals, full of lobsters, and it was out of season. So they put it there and when they ready they take it and they take it across.”
While a Belize Defence Force patrol does maintain a presence in the area, their duties revolve around national security issues and curbing the flow of drugs.
But stops at these fishing camps can prove interesting; like a visit to this fisherman, who claims to be from P.G., but doesn’t speak a word of English.
A team from the Fisheries Department is suppose to investigate these kinds of allegations, but according to biologist Myrna August, limited means have kept lawbreakers on the loose, and left several species vulnerable.
Myrna August, Marine Biologist, Fisheries Dept.
“We have Hawksbill and Loggerhead. This site is like the caye, the range of the cayes, is the most popular area where the turtles come out and nest, especially Nicholas Caye, Hunting Caye and Lime Caye… Poachers come and dig up the eggs like people from across or so when they come out camping especially on Nicholas Caye.”
Janelle Chanona
“How are you guys dealing with that situation?”
Myrna August
“Well, at this point in time, not really…”
Janelle Chanona
“Because you don’t have the…”
Myrna August
“Resources and stuff.”
And while the waters are at risk, the islands themselves have not fared much better. Most of the coconut trees on the cayes have been hit hard by the deadly Lethal Yellow disease, their naked trunks jutting out of the sand like toothpicks.
The picturesque beaches are also threatened by pollution from Guatemalan rivers and growing cities like, Puerto Cortez and Puerto Barrios.
Jack Nightingale, Coordinator, TASTE
“And it all washes up on the shore here…you see the kids here picking it up, and that’s all coming from over there you see, down the rivers.”
According to Jack Nightingale, coordinator of the Toledo Association for Sustainable Tourism and Empowerment, the damage by both man and nature is substantial.
Jack Nightingale
“As far as the International Coral Reef Association is concerned, this area is under threat because of the coast, because of these rivers bringing garbage and pollution. And it’s under threat because of the global warming and there’s a lot of coral bleaching and you can go out there and snorkel and you can see some of the results of the problem.”
To help deal with the problem, Nightingale has started a programme under which Belizean students from coastal schools learn the importance of the environment.
Jack Nightingale
“If we have them sensitized to the needs of marine protected areas like this, then they are going to value it.”
And while the people in power might be negotiating over the idea of an ecological park, the people in the water just want to see paradise protected.
Jesus Canahuati
“My kids enjoy very much here, so I hope that other families can come and do this. They protect the environment…they protect the reefs, we’ve seen a lot of people that come here that don’t know where they go through and sometimes they have accidents with the reef and they damage the reef. So anything that you can do to protect this site would do wonders for the world, I think.”
Arthur “Ali” Westby
“If they do it the right way, I guess it could work. The thing is to get the other countries, to get their people to cooperate you know. Like try to stop them from illegal fishing, like try to stop them so that we as a tourist destination, which is used by Guatemala, Honduras and Belize right now as it is, actually you have more foreigners coming out here than local Belizeans. Lot of local Belizeans have never seen how the Sapodilla is, how beautiful it is.”
But another Belizean is not so optimistic.
Oliver Garbutt, Fly Fishing Guide
“This is all what I rely on for my living…this is me. I don’t do anything else for a living but fishing. Well, personally, my interest is Lime Caye mainly, my dad leave it for us and I don’t see the sense of having a tri-national park down this way with Guatemala and Honduras. I think you’re giving up something even though the Government say you are not giving up anything, and I don’t think you should rely on that…because if you try to give up something today, Guatemala and Honduras will come back tomorrow and want something tomorrow again.”
Boris Porta
“I think all the three nations must collaborate to develop here like an ecology place and to make laws together to preserve this like this, all the time. It’s going to be very good for all the world. Remember that this is the second longest reef in the world. We don’t want it to be from Guatemala or from Honduras, who cares? We are only interested to be always like this.”
Jack Nightingale
“I think it has to be a great idea. For a start, let’s face it, the tour operators that have been coming here for the last thirty to forty years from Guatemala, whereas they say this is Belizean, they also recognize the joy they have in being able to use it. If we continue with that kind of relationship which is good, because they are bringing business, perhaps we would like to bring Belizeans in to enjoy more of it, rather than it all be Guatemalan. So that there could be a greater balance of things that would make it excellent.”
But the realities of geography may just be as tough as any negotiations with Guatemala. Even today, with full control over the area, there remains a feeling that these cayes are still a long way from home.
Janelle Chanona
“Whether the proposals are implemented are not, there is no question as to the sovereignty of these islands. But like this tattered Belizean flag, our presence here is badly in need of reinforcement. Reporting from Hunting Caye for News 5, I am Janelle Chanona.”
Assistance with transportation for that story was provided by the Inn at Robert’s Grove.
