Whereas Belize, located in South America, has upheld forest preservation efforts, its immediate western neighbor Guatemala is grappling with one of the highest deforestation rates in Central America. The deforestation problem now appears to be extending into Belizean forests. Source: Amandala (Belize)
Belize’s forests, when viewed from the air or via satellite imagery, form a natural border between Belize and Guatemala. However, according to a report in Amandala continued encroachments into Belizean territory, which includes land clearings for farms point to a scenario where Belize’s western forests could be lost.
Terra-i, a collaboration between the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT – DAPA), the Nature Conservancy (TNC), the School of Business and Engineering (HEIG-VD) and King’s College London (KCL) issued a report highlighting the escalating deforestation on the Belize-Guatemala border, and the long-term implications for Belize if nothing is done to tackle the problem.
The Water Center for the Humid Tropics of Latin America and the Caribbean (CATHALAC), in collaboration with the Ministry of Forestry, Fisheries, and Sustainable Development of the Government of Belize, Lancaster University of the UK and the Environmental Research Institute of the University of Belize, has just developed the first version of a 2012 forest cover map of Belize and that study, citing slightly different data, indicates that Belize’s forest cover declined from 62.8% in early 2010 to approximately 61.6% in early 2012.
Forestry land that state-run farms manage has reduced from four million a few years ago to 2.1 million now. Around one million was to be given back to localities, but the actual handover was just 585,000 hectares, with l.2 million hectares taken over by management boards of national parks. The fate of the remaining 115 hectares is not known.
According to official statistics about 2.6 million hectares of forestry land is now being managed by communes, but Thinh said this was not a good thing.
“Commune level administrations are not the ideal agencies to manage forestry land because they are neither business units nor forest protectors. Communes giving land to local residents without clear boundaries has complicated the situation,” he said.
Thinh’s suggestion for forest land held by State-owned farms to be auctioned off to increase their economic effectiveness has been questioned bas it could lead to further depletion of the nation’s thinning forest coverage.
While the Government has approved the auction policy in principle, it has not been implemented because the forestry land that would fall under the hammer has not been defined, nor has a plan for its subsequent use been formulated.
Experts have also called for policies to benefit forest planters and protectors so that existing forests are preserved and more effective afforestation projects implemented in the future.
