The threats to Chiquibul featured at symposium

From hospitals inundated with water to forests under siege…The Chiquibul National Park is Belize’s largest national park; about four hundred and fourteen square miles, which is approximately the size of the Corozal District. Patrolling, monitoring and protecting that area is a monumental task which falls primarily to a non-governmental organization known as the Friends of Conservation and Development (FCD). The challenges include Guatemalan poachers, farmers, and gold panners. The FCD is organizing a Chiquibul Symposium in July to raise awareness of the importance of the park and its ecosystems, and today Rafael Manzanero told us more about that critical event.

Rafael Manzanero, Executive Director, FCD

Rafael Manzanero

“The symposium will be taking place on the nineteenth of July it will be held here in the City at Fort George Hotel. We will be having three of the main presentation along with panelists who are actually gonna join us for that. We already have for example Mister David Gibson, who is a retired ambassador. We are going to bring one of our counterparts from Guatemala to demonstrate how they see. In fact, the presentation they will be giving is going to demonstrate by a map looking at projections…if we don’t do anything, how it is going to look in the next five, ten years. They are going to be able to demonstrate by a map how this thing is going to move. Practically what they have passed in the Peten area is what is already happening here. So we need to be careful, we need to control this thing cause we are reaching towards that. So one of the presentations is going to outline that. And more importantly what we need to do…so that is going to be the third presentation which I will be presenting also in terms of what are some of the actions that need to be done. Of course we are looking at the Chiquibul Ecosystem. We know there are other problems in other areas, but we feel much more confident about the Chiquibul and what is going on there. So that is coming up. It is going to raise visibility about the problem. And hopefully we want to reach out to the industries, the private sector. I think that there is a need for them to understand what exactly it means. It is not only about the environmental aspect, but it is everything that it carries along. So hopefully we will be able to bring it out concisely; be able to demonstrate why is it important for us as a country to maintain the Chiquibul Ecosystem at a high level of safeguard.”

News Five will have more on the Chiquibul National Park and the challenges facing the FCD in Wednesday’s newscast.