Urgent Follow-Up Action on Belize: Help Stop Logging on Maya Lands
12/14/97
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Headline: Urgent Follow-Up Action on Belize: Help Stop Logging on Maya Lands
Source: Julian Cho
Chairman
Toledo Maya Cultural Council
Date: 12/14/97
TO: GLOBAL RESPONSE QUICK RESPONSE NETWORK
URGENT FOLLOW-UP ON GR ACTION #1/97 -- STOP LOGGING ON MAYA LANDS / BELIZE
Last January we wrote letters to the Prime Minister of Belize, urging him to
(1) cancel logging concessions on traditional Maya lands in Southern Belize,
and (2) guarantee full participation of the Maya people in all development
plans for the region.
On December 17, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) will decide
whether to grant a loan to the Belizian government for paving the Southern
Highway through the Maya territories, directly affecting 40 Maya
communities. The Toledo Maya Cultural Council, which asked for our GR
Action in January, opposes this loan because the Maya people have NOT been
allowed full participation in the planning and development process. The
Maya people fear that rapid development in the Southern Zone, made possible
by the improved road, will further threaten their forests and their
livelihoods. They want the IDB to withhold the loan to the Belizian
government until safeguards to their land rights and their full
participation are in place.
The Toledo Maya Cultural Council and the Indian Law Resource Center ask GR
members to send faxes IMMEDIATELY to the IDB Director of our country -- to
influence their votes on December 17.
In your faxes, ask the IDB to:
1) Postpone consideration of financing for the Southern Highway until
all outstanding social and environmental problems, especially land
rights, have been resolved to the satisfaction of the affected
communities.
2. Disapprove the loan until it contains an agreement with the
government that includes binding environmental and social mitigation
measures to a) protect Maya lands, b) carry out environmental studies
required by IDB procedures, c) significantly reduce the anticipated
indirect environmental damages, and d) promote equitable access to
economic and social benefits envisioned as a result of paving the
road.
3. Urge the government of Belize to legally recognize Maya lands.
4. Ensure true community participation in decision making by
respecting the views of the affected population, local lenders and
local NGOs who are opposing approval of this loan until land rights
and environmental mitigation measures are secured.
Please send faxes to your country's Director at the IDB (choose from
directors listed below). Send a copy of your fax to Enrique Iglesias,
President, Inter-American Development Bank, Fax No. 202/623-3614.
THANKS FOR YOUR QUICK RESPONSE TO THIS URGENT SITUATION.
Columbia and Peru
Julio ANGEL Fax: (202) 623-3606
Alberto YAGUI
Bolivia, Paraguay and Uraquay
Orlando BAREIRO AGUILERA Fax: (202) 623-3613
Antonio SORUCO VILLANUEVA
Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua
Maria Antonieta de BONILLA Fax: (202) 623-2222
Edgard Antonio GUERRA
Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Norway, Spain and Sweden
Georges CAHUZAC Fax: (202) 623-3643
Germ=E1n BEJARANO
Panama and Venezuela
Maritza IZAGUIRRE Fax: (202) 623-3607
Rogelio NOVEY
Canada
Guy A. LAVIGUEUR Fax: (202) 623-3609
Alan F. GILL
Belgium, Germany, Israel, Italy, The Netherlands and Switzerland
Gert-Robert LIPTAU Fax: (202) 623-3605
Marco FERRONI
Bahamas, Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago
Barry MALCOLM Fax: (202) 623-3611
George L. REID
Chile and Ecuador
Mario MARCEL Fax: (202) 623-3574
Carlos VERA
Argentina and Haiti
A. Humberto PETREI Fax: (202) 623-3617
Jos=E9 Mar=EDa CARTAS
Dominican Republic and Mexico
Mois=E9s A. PINEDA Fax: (202) 623-3608
Ernesto A. SELMAN
Croatia, Japan, Portugal, Slovenia and United Kingdom
Yukio SARUHASHI Fax: (202) 623-3610
Alexandra M. ARCHBOLD
United States of America
L. Ronald SCHEMAN Fax: (202) 623-3612
Lawrence HARRINGTON
Brazil and Suriname
Antonio Cl=E1udio SOCHACZEWSKI Fax: (202) 623-3616
Mauro Marcondes RODRIGUES
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Following is the text of a letter from the president of the Toledo Maya
Cultural Council to the IDB:
November 21, 1997
The Board of Directors
Inter-American Development Bank
Washington, DC
Dear Sir:
Greetings from the Toledo District. I am writing you with regard to
the loan application before the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB)
by the government of Belize to upgrade the Southern Highway. The
struggles that the Mayas face in the context of a developing Belize
are common to all Indigenous people in this hemisphere: recognition of
ancestral lands, culture, justice and the environment. I speak to you
as a man who has unconditional love for Belize. I am asking you to
suspend giving the loan to pave the Southern Highway until the land
tenure for all the Maya villages is completely settled.
Since 1993, the government of Belize asked the Mayas to contain their
milpa system and continue to help preserve the forests. We did not
object when the Forest Planning and Management Project (FPMP) was put
in place by the Forestry Department with advice from the Overseas
Development Agency (O.D.A.) even though its reach includes some of our
ancestral lands. FPMP wrote a draft management plan for the Columbia
River Forest Reserve without input from the Maya, and none of the Maya
organizations endorsed it. Then, without our knowledge and without
consultation with us, the Government began to give logging concessions
in the Reserve to foreign companies. Now, there are over 17
concessions for logging lands the Maya use. Concessions to Malaysian
companies Toledo Atlantic International and Atlantic Industries alone
are already damaging the streams, drinking water, hunting and fishing
of 22 Mopan and Ke'kchi Maya villages.
The greatest fallacy that has been promoted by the government is that
this area is not unique. In 1993, scientists from Conservation
International, the St. Louis Botanical Garden and the Center for
Environmental Studies, after a careful assessment of the area has
concluded "We can say without hesitation that the evergreen forests of
this area are of great national and international importance, as a
reservoir of biological diversity."
The government would like us to believe that all social, economic,
environmental, and ecological concerns have been met. That is not
true. At the same time, we are blamed for depleting the forests.
However, we do not abuse the land.
Government logging concessions to some 500,000 acres in our area are
the "development" that the paving of the Southern Highway would
promote is primarily for the benefit of elite and outsiders. Without
security in our lands, our Maya people will be disposed and further
improvised. The logging situation is closely related with the paving
of the Southern Highway. We are not against development. However, we
do not support development, which would have lasting negative impacts
on the social structure of the local people. We are at risk
particularly because the status of our land tenure is so tenuous. We
have no legal rights to any of our land.
More disturbing comments were made by Owen Gentle at the end of a
study of "Review of Land Leases, Titles and Applications in the Toledo
District" to the Environmental and Social Technical Assistance
Project" (ESTAP) on January 31, 1997. He said, "It has been noted
that the Maya Belizeans had not been submitting applications for lands
that they are in occupation of. This was due to the fact that in the
past they were used to paying annual tenancy on their lands. Annual
tenancy means paying a rental from year to year and also means that
the tenant has no legal claim to the land and could be asked to
evacuate the land at short notice. The Maya Belizeans should take up
the option available to all Belizeans. This is to apply to the
Commissioner of Lands and Surveys for permission to use the services
of Private Surveyors to survey their lands.
This is a sad indication of the government's continuing hard-line on
indigenous land rights. Our culture is based on a communal land
system and shows a real lack of understanding about our rights and our
culture. We are asking the government to recognize our rights to land
where we have lived and used. Half of the Maya population lives
outside the so-called Maya Reserves. With respect of Indian
Reservations, the 1992 Lands Act states that "nothing in this act
shall prevent the Minister in charge of lands from selling them in the
ordinary way."
Consultation of the Mayas even with the ESTAP has been minimal and
one-directional. The government has effectively excluded from that
process the key issue of indigenous land rights. Similarly, the
government prevented review of the logging concession by the Bank on
its environmental and social impact assessments. It kept those
concessions secret until late August of this year. To what extent is
the paving of the Southern Highway a service to the logging industry?
As a means of concluding, allow me to share a statement made by
Rodolfo Stavenhagen. Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Fund
for the Development of the Indigenous Peoples of Latin America and the
Caribbean "Sustainable development must also help preserve the
cultural identity of peoples and nations, since economic growth that
ignores cultural identity is, in the end profoundly destructive." The
road that the Mayas are travelling is not only lonely but also
powerless.
I thank you in advance for your support.
Sincerely,
Julian Cho
Chairman
Toledo Maya Cultural Council
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