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Belize:
Our Life, Our
Lands -- Respect Maya Land Rights
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Young
boy holding onto a Cacao tree in Jordan Village, one of the communities
within US Capital's concession for oil drilling. © Tony Rath
Photography / tonyrath.com
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In
Southern Belize, Sarstoon Temash National Park holds within its 42,000
acres the most pristine rainforest in the country. Its primary forests
have been attributed by National Geographic as remnants of the ancient
Maya's agroforestry systems, and today continue to be sustainably
maintained by the Maya peoples of Southern Belize.
The Supreme Court of Belize ruled in 2007 and again in 2010 that the Maya
who have ancestrally cared for these forests shall hold the legal titles to these
lands. This court ruling, along with national and
international laws, mandates that Indigenous Peoples must give their Free, Prior and Informed Consent
before any development project that may affect them. But that right
has been trampled on again and again by the Texas-based oil company US
Capital Energy, which received a concession from the Belize government to
extract oil in Southern Belize beginning in 2001.
In further flagrant violation of
the Maya land rights under national law, the UN Declaration on the Rights
of Indigenous Peoples, and recommendations by the Inter American Human
Rights Commission, the government has now granted the oil company permits
to move to the second phase of exploratory drilling in the park and on
Indigenous territories. US Capital Energy has so far cut over 200
miles of seismic trails for oil exploration in the national park and on
communities' traditional lands, also causing forest fires destroying 400
acres, including the unique ecosystem of the sphagnum moss, the last of
its kind in Central America.
The
21,000 Indigenous people in the region are fighting to defend their
traditional lands, including the national treasure of the Sarstoon Temash
National Park, against this short-sighted land grab. As Gregory
Ch'oc of the Sarstoon Temash Institute for Indigenous Management
explains, "The government is counting on our regional isolation, our
poverty, and our relative lack of power to continue marginalizing and
discriminating against us and violating our rights. Therefore, we are
urgently calling allies of the earth's biodiversity and Indigenous
Peoples to take a stand with us and support our struggle."
HOW
YOU CAN HELP
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Cultural Survival
is a global leader in the fight to protect Indigenous lands, languages,
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are under threat. For more information go to www.cs.org
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