Private Land Owners Stands to Lose in Toledo District

Dolores Balderamos- Garcia

On Thursday, Minister of Indigenous People’s Affairs, Dolores Balderamos-Garcia, spoke extensively on the matter, during an interview with reporters. Minister Balderamos-Garcia explained that a number of private land owners stand to lose land if their properties fall within customary Maya lands. She gave the example of a spice farm in Golden Stream Village.

Dolores Balderamos- Garcia, Minister of Indigenous People’s Affairs

“They say as always that the devil is in the details because let me give you an example, down in Golden Stream there is a spice farm that is owned by Dr. Thomas Mathew and his wife. They have been in this country for thirty-two years and their spice farm and I would recommend you go there, it is a lovely facility he and his wife has done so much in terms of cultivation for the land, spices, black pepper, white pepper, all spice and he and his wife gave us an absolutely lovely tour last week and I really want to commend him for investing in Belize and having a facility such as that which has over thirty employees. But why am I bringing up his name, because his spice farm is located within what we would call the village of Golden Stream. Now the question with the devil in the details would be, what happens if his property would lie within the extent of going out the one or the two or the three kilometer? The question is something we will have to work out. I don’t have the answer right now, because I am not the technical person. But, I would wish to see that we can have a meshing or a melding, a coming together of interest so that we don’t have to be fighting one another. Because, if the spice farm employees over thirty employees from the Maya communities, why would we want to send him home? This is his home now and what he has done in terms of expanding his resort, he has the proposal to complete the building of twelve rustic cabanas that the tourist can come and that will provide even more jobs for our people. So why would we want to deprive our people of that type of resort and facility when we can probably find a way to live together without having to take away people land.”