In March, we told you about a UNESCO team visiting Belize to investigate dredging
and cutting down of mangroves inside a World Heritage Site at the Pelican Caye
range in southern Belize. We also showed you UNESCO Programme Specialist Marc
Patry’s visit to Fisherman’s Caye – a mangrove overwash that
had been dredged and filled, ostensibly as a part of a resort development project.
Well, the UNESCO team has completed its report and as could have been expected
the findings aren’t good for Belize. The report – send to Belize’s
UNESCO Ambassador on May 27th. concludes that Belize’s World Heritage
Sites are poorly protected. The report says, quote, “there is no clear
recognition and understanding of the management implications for a world heritage
property.”
And nowhere is that clearer than when making a visit to the lands office which
shows that between 2004 and 2008, 79 grants and 58 leases were given in the
South Water Caye Marine Reserve. Add this to mangrove cutting, tourism growth
in areas such as Half Moon Caye, and construction in areas after the World Heritage
declaration, and you’ve got a very bleak picture. After enumerating myriad
threats and features of non-compliance, the report inevitably concludes that,
quote, “the property is faced with specific and proven imminent danger,
and should be considered for immediate inscription on the list of World Heritage
in Danger.”
This will be deliberated starting next week at the 33rd Session of the World
Heritage Committee in Seville, Spain starting June 22nd. And while that deadline
is days away, when asked what is the government’s response, a cabinet
level government source have told us that our question was the first they are
hearing about UNESCO’s finding.
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