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And that's why the Friends For Conservation - which operates in the Chiquibul left the jungles in the far west to come to the city today for press conference. 7news was there as they sounded the alarm...

Jules Vasquez Reporting

The Chiquibul Forest consists of three protected areas, namely the Chiquibul National Park, Chiquibul Forest Reserve and the Caracol Archaeological Reserve - all told about 50% of the Cayo district, or 7.7% of the total landmass of the entire country.

This afternoon the Friends for Conservation and Development which co-manages the National Park held a press conference to make a call for urgent action: they say we're losing significant chunk of the forest to all these pressures:

As we've shown you over the years, it's under multiple pressures, logging, poaching, incursions, agricultural encroachments and population pressures - all from neighboring Guatemala - which as these small blue dots show is populated with communities that are pressing against Belize's western border.

They have now pushed as much as 12 miles into Belize:

Derek Chan - FCD
"That would be about the distance from Benque Vejo to Belmopan. That's how far the illegal activities are happening inside the Chiquibul."

And one Guatemalan Rigoberto Guttierrez as pushed past the border line into Belize, where he has lived for 5 years:

Derek Chan
"He has been living in the Chiquibul for the past 15 years - at least - according to our records. When we went there as managers, we met him, and he's been there for these past five years. He's in the adjacency line; his house is in Belize - about 60 meters inside Belize. That would be about 130 feet, but his farm - all his cattle ranching - covers about 25 acres land inside the national park. And he keeps expanding and expanding because there is no marker or anything to say - no dialog to tell him that he must stop."

The OAS knows of the situation, in fact so do the police and the BDF - they know that he has weapons.

Rafael Manzanero - FCD
"He was caught with a rifle and over 12 bullets; why was he released? Why is he out there, when our laws of Belize are very clear about handling of firearms?"

Another problem is poaching of the precious Scarlet Macaws:

Derek Chan -FCD
"In Belize, we normally don't see these things happen because it's a totally different culture, but in this case here, this bird has been shot, and this is an adult."

Indeed, they have poached Macaw nests as much as 18 miles into Belizean territory. Arrests have been made, but enforcement lags badly behind violations:

Derek Chan
"So we go out there, and we patrol these trails day after day, but the illegal activities are just right across from the Chiquibul."

In terms of logging, the toll is staggering: in 24 years it has increased exponentially

Boris Arevalo - FCD
"All the red that you are seeing here, that is the deforestation for 2009, and we have lot down here - South Chiquibul. The yellow that you are seeing is new deforestation as of April 2011. So in 1987, there was an area deforested about 113 hectares. That was in 1987. And as we look at the time, in 1994, 692 hectare; that is a clear increase. If we draw a line, there is always an increase. In 2009, 4,680+ hectares were cleared. Now, as of April 2011, we have an area of 4,900 - almost 5,000 hectares being cleared by agriculture."

The last assessment in June of this year - the area in red, shows the area of influence at 26 thousand hectares.

And while that shows the density of agricultural encroachments, illegal logging is worse:

Boris Arevalo - FCD
Now, we have in late 2009, this area here was already under impact by illegal logging, and that polygon had an area of 12,000 hectares. By December of 2010, the yellow polygon now shows that illegal logging had increased to 18,000 hectares."

The economic loss to the country in terms of Cedar and Mahogany within the zone of influence is 7.6 million US dollars.

Boris Arevalo
"We have a clear picture. The activity is very aggressive, and there are no signs that it will slow down. We are seeing almost an exponential increase in this activity, and the loggers are getting more aggressive."

So what to do about all this?

Rafael Manzanero - FCD
"We believe that there is a need of how really to conduct a clear policy and mandate on how to deal with cross-border environmental issues. What do I mean by that? A lot of enforcement in personnel is a little bit timid, or afraid of dealing with Guatemalan elements. Particularly, whenever it pertains to environmental crimes, I think that it really needs to be coming into focus on why it needs to be done. If there is something that we wanted to come about from this press conference, is that this really has a lot elements. It's like an octopus; it has so many hands, and we want to ensure that it's really understood that there is not really one single activity. And at the end, of course, we need to be looking at this much more closely to see that it's not because the Chiquibul is way back there and hidden under forests that it should it should be forgotten. What we are saying is that this is a very important portion of the jewel for Belize. So if we are doing those actions, we are saying that it's not really stopping them. So we need to devise the new methods and be more tactical, and put more interventions in place."

We didn't mention Xate in the story - but that remains another pressure, but lower in intensity than logging or agricultural encroachments.

In 2005, an economic assessment of Xate in the Chiquibul Forest Reserve, estimated that in a period of five years some 37.8 million leaves with a value of $1 million Belize dollars had been extracted from the Chiquibul Forest Reserve illegally.

Xate illegal activity declined sharply last year, but by the second half of this year, it had started to pick up again.