On March eighth and ninth in Punta Gorda Town, SATIIM invited villagers, and NGO activists to an Oil summit in Punta Gorda town. The anti-oil industry sentiment was high with communities clamoring for inclusion and on exploration in protected areas and on communal lands.
Well, not to be outdone, the ministry of natural resources - which sanctions oil activity in Belize held its own round of consultations last weel Wednesday at Corazon Technical High School and St. Peter Claver Parish Hall.
It was an interesting contrast in approaches - and there were signs that after all the back and forth - some have been left profoundly confused:…
Participant
"I just have a concern about what I have seen this Saturday and I want Mr. Sho and Mr. Young to tell me if it is true or if they are just telling the people lie. This Saturday about 4 o' clock in the evening we had some visitors and some NGOs saying that in some communities they are drilling oil. They brought us a movie saying that fish are dying, people are dying, animal are dying and you could see signs of oil on the fish, but I don't know if that is true, so that's why I want to know more or less if this is true and that these things are happening. They say that the people in Spanish Lookout are dying so we want to know if it is true."
Hon. Gaspar Vega, Minister of Natural Resources
"Yesterday we had a talk with the leaders of Spanish Lookout and at the moment they are making all inquiries as to how - what's the process for them to apply for a license now to get a psa. A psa is a license for you to do the exploration and if successful do the exploitation on an area and the area that they are interested in exploring is the area of Spanish Lookout. So I don't think that if they are dying or if their kids are getting sick they would want to continue do the process of doing more exploration."
Participant
"When we hear about the NGOs coming to us talking to us about the negative impact of oil exploration but they did not tell us the positive part of it and I believe that is our weakness that's the weakness of all NGOs and some of the governmental organizations that they are not open to us especially us in the very remote communities of this district."
Hon. Gaspar Vega, Minister of Natural Resources
"Today the purpose of our visit here is not to sell an idea or to sell an object or to see some dream to the people from Toledo. The purpose of our visit is to ensure that you get all information possible so that tomorrow you can stand up and say the decision I made yesterday was based on all the information that I could have gotten, not based on what the minister wanted me to do or what some NGO wanted me to do. This government is committed in reducing the poverty in our country.
Education is the only tool that we need for us to get out of poverty. What do we want? Do we want to get out of poverty? Do we want a better life? These people just keep crying foul - don't do this, don't do that but they don't say what we should do. We have technical here today that will be able to prove to you that the damage to our natural resources through exploration and even exploitation is nothing compared to other practices that we've had for many years and that we continue doing. Is it that someone wants to keep us down? Keep us ignorant? Keep us poor? These are the questions that we ought to ask each other. "
The Ministry's Team included the Director of Geology and Petroleum, the Chief Environmental Officer, Chief Forest Officer, the Strategic Policy Advisor, and the Director of the National Protected Areas Secretariat.
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