There are sixteen more days to go before Christmas and there’s a lot of house and yard cleaning yet to be done. But don’t worry this weekend the Belize City Council will be helping you to haul away all the garbage from in front of your house, free of cost. According to David Fonseca, City […]
The recent rains may have played havoc with the streets and the lives of Belize City residents but one positive result is that the trees and shrubbery planted in public places has never looked better. Based on the success of a volunteer effort on St. Thomas Street some young people looked to duplicate the feat […]
The Belize City infrastructure project may have given a facelift to some parts of the old capital, but the sight of abandoned and decaying buildings, both large and small, continues to blight the urban landscape. How much longer these derelicts will be allowed to stand is a matter now being taken up by authorities. The […]
In more news from Belmopan the Belize Enterprise for Sustained Technology, BEST, today signed an agreement with government to manage the Terra Nova Forest Reserve in the Cayo District. What makes this deal unique is that the six thousand acres of Terra Nova are being set aside for the sustainable use of medicinal plants. BEST […]
In other development news from the south the Toledo Institute for Development and the Environment, “TIDE,” has signed an agreement with the Interamerican Development Bank for community based environmental monitoring of the district’s coastline. The I.D.B. will provide TIDE with one hundred thousand U.S. dollars to establish a monitoring system to analyze coastal changes as […]
The St. John’s College Gym always seems to be transforming into something new, one night it is a dance hall filled with balloons, the next week it is a sea of proud graduates, who are quickly replaced by booths featuring the products of various businesses. But this week, the S.J.C. Gym has being turned into […]
San Pedro and Caye Caulker were two parts of Belize which received the greatest damage from Hurricane Mitch… but it appears that a different kind of storm is brewing over just what the newly restored beachfront of the islands will look like. A majority of piers in front of the communities were destroyed and the […]
The arrival of a Smithsonian Institute traveling exhibition to Belize has been delayed by not one, but two hurricanes. First, it was Hurricane Georges’ forced closure of the airport in Miami that kept the Smithsonian from bringing its Barrier Reef exhibit on schedule last month. Then just as things were returning to normal, Hurricane Mitch […]
Belize’s national parks and protected areas suffered some damage during Mitch and the Belize Audubon Society is carrying out an assessment and clean up campaign. The Blue Hole National Park, Cockscomb Basin and Crooked Tree Wildlife Sanctuaries, Half Moon Caye Natural Monument and Guanacaste National Park are closed to the public until November ninth. B.A.S. […]
Belizeans across the country have been glued to their TVs and radios to monitor the progress of what is probably the worst storm to ever threaten Belize. About an hour ago News Five’s Karla Heusner spoke with the Director of the Climate Change Project Carlos Fuller who is part of the team at the Met […]
Forecasters say it’s no cause for concern right now; but the slow moving Tropical Storm Mitch in the western Caribbean should be monitored over the next couple of days. According to head of the National Climate Change Project Carlos Fuller, the potential for Mitch to strengthen into a hurricane remains high. Carlos Fuller, Director, Climate […]
It is fitting that in the midst of a day of sometime torrential rain, a group of Belize’s top professionals met to discuss the subject of… water. Patrick Jones reports from the Radisson. The two-day meeting brings together over twenty representatives of organizations that depend heavily on the country’s water resources. Acting Chief Meteorologist Justin […]
While on the subject of broadcasting, media houses nationwide have received requests from Atlantic Industries Limited, the Malaysian company engaged in controversial logging activities in Toledo, to come visit their southern operations and report on what they find. In the past the Malaysians have refused to speak to the Belizean press but have apparently had […]
Many of us can remember those days of the not-so-distant past, when the Haulover Creek was little more than an open sewer and the waters around Belize City were full of floating garbage. And while few would deny that the old capital has cleaned up its act, there’s still a long way to go. One […]
Yesterday we reported on two incidents involving the delivery of butane gas…and while nobody was seriously hurt such is not always the case. Last month three people died and more were injured when a poorly welded butane tank exploded while being filled in the Orange Walk District. News Five’s Patrick Jones took a closer look […]
In related news, we today received a call from the owner of Western Gas Company in Cayo. He took issue with our story yesterday which implied that the driving of a rapidly leaking gas truck through the streets of Santa Elena was a dangerous act. He stated that the route, which he claimed leads through […]
It has been out of the public spotlight for quite some time but it doesn’t mean that the controversy over logging in Toledo has gone away. Over the weekend a group of leaders from several Toledo villages were in Belize City to update the media on the latest developments in the ongoing fight to protect […]
We last saw it in 1995 when a record summer heat wave was responsible for the phenomenon known as coral bleaching. Now, according to reports received by the Fisheries Department, the same symptoms seem to be coming back in the wake of the current high temperatures in Belize. Coral bleaching is the term given to […]
Belize City will never be mistaken for the Garden of Eden, but if a small group of public spirited citizens has its way, one of Kings Park’s newly refurbished streets will soon be as beautiful as it is smooth. Patrick Jones reports. The idea of landscaping the newly constructed St. Thomas Street Boulevard is the […]
It’s been a while since we’ve had the displeasure of reporting the discovery of dead manatees on Belize’s coastline; but it doesn’t mean that the poachers have given up their habit. News has been received of the death of not one, but at least three of the aquatic mammals in southern Belize, and at least […]
The Department of the Environment today announced its first successful prosecution under the environmental protection act. On Tuesday Cherax Aquaculture, located near Monkey River Village, was found guilty of polluting the Sennis River which resulted in the death of a large number of fish including snook and tarpon. The fish kill, which occurred in May, […]
The opposition has been accusing him of passing out land papers by the ream in a last minute effort to buy votes and raise campaign funds. But whatever the truth of those allegations, Minister of Natural Resources Eduardo Juan has also been busy creating protected areas. This week he signed a statutory instrument declaring all […]
Yesterday we reported on improvements being made at Punta Negra in Toledo’s Payne’s Creek National Park. Tonight we have news of the creation of a new protected area in that southern district. A statutory instrument was signed today by Minister of Natural Resources, Eduardo Juan, declaring the Aquas Calientes Wildlife Sanctuary. According to a government […]
It is one of the finest natural beaches in the entire country… but virtually nobody — inside or outside Belize — knows about it. That may begin to change, however, thanks to a project financed by the British High Commission. On Friday High Commissioner Tim David will inaugurate a new jetty and boardwalk at Punta […]
Last year I paid a visit to an idyllic village in the Belize district to view the start of a unique conservation project. This morning I returned to find that life on the river is getting better. Located just three miles in from Hattieville Village on the Western Highway, the small village of Freetown Sibun […]
