Riverine Training to Take Place behind Lord’s Bank Area

Jermaine Burns

The bridge will provide access to an area for riverine and jungle exercises by both military forces.

Lt. Col. Jermaine Burns, Acting Chief of Staff, B.D.F.

“We had come at the back here along with our British partners to look at a way that we could bridge the gap between riverine training all the way in the Mountain Pine Ridge area versus riverine training in the river here. We did an environmental impact assessment on the river, we did a lot of our homework alongside the guys from the air wing to look at what they had to offer just behind the base there. And we found out that this area behind the Lord’s Bank area would work for us two-folds. While this is a private area, we had engaged the owner of the area and asked if it was that we would want to access this area that we would be able to – should we replace the bridge, clear the road a bit. Afford our forces, both the British Forces and the Belize Defence Force the opportunity to exercise our troops in this area, launch our boats and that sort of thing. That was agreed to and all the paperwork was drafted for us to get the area prepared. But it never came to fruition because of the pandemic. And so I was happy to hear that the engineers came in and they started on the bridge. So I rushed out here yesterday and visited with them and to my surprise these guys were almost finished. So we are going to clear up the area a little bit, ensure that there is vehicular traffic or access to the area and then the customary jungle package, jungle training that we do for our Belize Defence Force troops twice a year will be able to have access to this area, use the area and use way less logistics than would be consumed if we were using the Mountain Pine Ridge area.”