And while they praised the government of Belize in their joint release - it doesn't mean the Nature Conservancy was happy about paying many millions more on a deal that had already been closed with the previous administration.
Today we spoke to TNC's local program director Julie Robins and asked about the re-negotaiton:
Jules Vasquez, Reporter
"Did the Nature Conservancy feel that at any point the government was moving the goalpost on them being that you already had a signed agreement with the prior government?"
Julie Robinson, Belize Program Director, TNC
"In all honesty we would have preferred as would anybody not to pay any taxes right, so we now have to dig deeper into our pockets and also the Belize Mayan Trust who are the custodians of this land to pay taxes that we had never accounted for. So, it is a huge deal. I'm not going to lie to you, it was a major blow, but as I mentioned before 2020 was an extra-ordinary year for the world, for Belize especially and we got hit so hard with the pandemic and sent us into economic crisis and so TNC recognizes that and realize that this parcel of land 236,000 acres of land actually represented a significant amount of revenue for government from land tax payments. So considering those factors, we reiterated that we would take a discounted rate on the payment of land taxes. We are not cheering about it, but given those circumstances I think it was the right thing to do and that's where we landed."
Jules Vasquez, Reporter
"Was it at any point sort of a potential deal breaker?"
Julie Robinson, Belize Program Director, TNC
"It was never a deal breaker on the land taxes. That's part of the negotiation process. You win some, lose some."
Robinson also spoke in very general terms about the Blue Bond - which the TNC is also involved with and we'll have that for you tomorrow.
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