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.