Resident Birds of Belize – a New Definitive Stamp Issue
The Belize Postal Service released its latest definitive stamp issue today. This issue will replace the old definitive issue which dates back to 2005. It features colourful birds found across Belize and the stamps range from five cent to ten dollars. News Five attended today’s launch. Here’s the story with Andrea Polanco.
Andrea Polanco, Reporting
Today, the Belize Postal Service launched a new collection of stamps called the “Resident Birds of Belize.” For the past two years the Belize Postal Service and the Belize Audubon Society have been working on this new set of postage stamps. Post Master General James Gabriel says these stamps will now form part of the regular issue of Belize’s stamps at least for the next five years.
James Gabriel
James Gabriel, Postmaster General
“The theme for this new, beautiful and colorful set of stamp is ‘Resident Birds of Belize.’ The set features fourteen different stamps of varying values ranging from a five cent stamp to a ten dollars stamp. This new set of definitive stamps will now replace the old definitive; Belize Destinations- Ecological and Cultural Heritage Sites which was initially released on August 31st 2005. So, we had the old definitive circulating for at least fifteen years – a very long time. The old definitive will be withdrawn from all post office counters, that we are now releasing these new definitive. These new sets of definitive that we are releasing will be on sale for not less than five years.”
The fourteen stamps were reproduced from photos courtesy of the Belize Audubon Society. It features resident birds, which are birds found across Belize through-out the year – including Barn Owl; Roadside Hawk; the Brown Pelican and the Blackbird. The birds in the stamp collection represent only a fraction of the hundreds of species found around the country. Member of the Board of Directors of the Belize Audubon Society and photographer Francis Canto hopes that the stamps help to spread conservation message to every corner of the globe they travel to.
Francis Canto Jr.
Francis Canto Jr., Photographer & Birding Expert
“The photographs were taken all over our beautiful country; the mockingbird from Ambergris Caye; the roadside hawk from crooked tree and the crested guan from the cockscomb basin wildlife sanctuary; and also the ubiquitous great tail grackle which I actually photographed right outside my yard. This shows us that birds are everywhere. They are found in every nook and cranny of the globe and through all ecosystems. So, I am hoping that these stamps that we are releasing here today help promote awareness and conservation of these birds and also for the natural areas that they inhabit here in Belize. The stamps are thirteen species in total; it is fourteen because we have a male and a female. This is only a small group of the almost six hundred birds we have in Belize.”
The stamps are now available at post offices across the country. Users of the postal service can now use forty-cent and one fifty stamps – as this collection includes these two new values.
James Gabriel
“This new release also features a forty-cent stamp and a one-fifty stamp. These two new values, in the case of the forty-cent stamps are primarily for persons who will be mailing post-cards to the United Kingdom. In the case of the one-fifty stamps, this would facilitate customers who would purchase stamps for the purposes of affixing to declaration forms. So, this makes it a bit easier for them. Instead of affixing multiple stamps, they can now affix only one stamp.”
Reporting for News Five, I’m Andrea Polanco.
