The Guatemalan chopped the last stand of brush on the barren hillside. The sun punished him with only the occasional cloud to provide relief. Stopping every few minutes, Alejandro wiped his brow with the sleeve of his dirt-stained shirt and surveyed his morning’s work.
He knew he was in Belize, but he felt he had no choice. All the land around his village was owned by cattle barons. The ranchers had even moved into Belize. Just to the south of where he was chopping grazed 30 head of cattle. A bulldozer had gouged a watering hole; a nearby concrete feeding trough — complete with zinc shade — was sturdier than his house. Surely if the cattle people could clear, burn and develop land for pasture, he could clear a small plot for his farm. He would plant pumpkins. He could sell them at the market to provide for his wife and two children.
It was nearing noon. Taking off his straw hat, wiping the sweat dripping from his brow one more time, he turned toward the only sapling remaining in the field behind him where he left the old oil container full of water and a satchel of tortillas and ham in the shade. Exhausted and hungry after a long morning, he called to his dogs and trudged through the clumped grass around an outcrop of uncut brush toward the sliver of shade and his lunch.
He would never make it there.
The past month has been rough for the people of western Belize. Clouds of acrid, eye burning smoke settled over the countryside, insidiously penetrating cars, buildings and bedrooms leaving no place for relief. With blistering heat, little breeze and quarantined by Covid-19 to their homes, Belizeans were getting a preview of what the entrance to hell must be like.
Some of the smoke came from large commercial farms burning sugar cane prior to cutting and harvest. Many of the fires were intentionally set by small farmers prepping their milpas for planting. Normally a fire break is carefully constructed around the perimeter of the milpa to contain the burning, but this time something went wrong. Some fires jumped their breaks into the tinder dry surrounding bush and burned rapidly through the forest as a result of extremely low relative humidity, high day-time temperatures, and light breeze. Like an uncaged starving animal, the fires consumed all jungle and farms in their blazing paths.
Air tankers helped douse the flames from above while hundreds of volunteer fire fighters deployed to bulldoze fire lines and brave the heat and smoke to choke the runaway blazes with backpack sprayers.
On April 21st, The Government of Belize passed an emergency regulation stating:
“…This new regulation prohibits burning of bush, milpa, agricultural fields, pasture, grass, or any type of vegetation during the state of emergency. It also prohibits the open burning of household and yard waste…”
Unfortunately for the Vaca Forest Reserve (VFR), the emergency regulation came too late.
Humans tend to ignore stuff that’s real, unless it’s in our back yard. Most Belizeans can not even locate the VFR on a map. The Reserve currently covers an area of 35,701 acres (14,447 hectares), and forms part of the Greater Maya Mountains Massif, a key biodiversity and watershed conservation area in Belize. It is bordered on the east by the Mountain Pine Ridge Forest Reserve and Nojkaaxmeen Elijio Panti National Park; to the south by the Chiquibul National Park; and to the west by Guatemala.
The richness of the VFR was once legendary, bustling with wildlife, virgin caves and fresh water, the perfect playground for Belize’s budding environmentalists living along its northern border towns of Arenal, San Jose Succotz and Benque Viejo. In 1991, an estimated 52,000 acres of the Vaca forest was declared a reserve in a statutory instrument (SI) so as to:
“… maintain adequate stock of renewable natural resources for sustainable use by the local communities and contribute to the national economy; as well as for watershed protection…”
But cracks soon appeared in this gem of a forest. The VFR SI of 1991 contained a “save and except” clause protecting grandfathered land leases. By 1995, a Forest Department report listed 33 farmsteads inside the reserve. That same year the Mollejon damn was built on the Macal River (which forms the eastern border of the reserve), followed by the Vaca dam in 2002. The construction of these dams opened road access into the heart of the VFR.
Then in 2003, as if Belize has unlimited forests, over 11,500 acres were excised by the Government Of Belize (GOB) straight through the heart of the reserve, splitting it into two with the objective of providing more land to farmers from the buffering communities. In 2011 a further 4,673 acres was de-reserved again for agricultural land use.
Like the four horsemen of the apocalypse, destruction of the reserve comes riding in from all sides. To the North are the farmers of the bordering communities, venturing unheeded into the VFR, clearing the forest in the conquest of land for agriculture.
Loggers, both permitted and illegal, infect the landscape from within, extracting trees without concern for the scars they leave and the habitat they destroy and the wildlife they eat, despite it being well known the the timber stocks are already depleted beyond recovery.
With no clear demarcation of the reserve boundaries, farmers that moved into the excised center of the reserve began clearing and claiming land within the protected area. At last count, these interlopers are responsible for removing over 1,005 acres (407 ha) of forest reserve.
Finally, to the west is the seemingly unstoppable pressure of Guatemalan peasant farmers and cattle ranchers. They chop and clear and burn with little fear of retribution. The Guatemalans now collude with Belizeans. In some cases they are becoming part of the community though remaining undocumented. There are reports of smuggling goods, human trafficking and organized crime in the region. The Police Force, Forestry Department, even the Belize Defense Force (BDF) find it safer to work with the corrupted conditions in the VFR — or ignore them — rather than enforce the laws of Belize.
In less than 30 years, the VFR has morphed from a pristine wilderness to a degraded, dying landscape.
I was part of a ranger team from Friends for Conservation and Development (FCD) tasked with documenting the extent and origin of the wildfires in Vaca Forest Reserve and the Chiquibul National Park.
FCD has major skin in this game as it co-manages with the Forestry Department the Chiquibul National Park. In 2010 the Forest Department asked FCD to develop a Landscape Management Strategy aimed at encouraging local communities to participate in the Vaca Reserve management. FCD helped establish Friends of the Vaca Forest Reserve, a group of 22 farmers whose interest was to restore and protect the reserve. FCD’s extension technicians work closely with these farmers, teaching them sustainable farming practices and educating them about the importance of watershed protection, biodiversity, and resource management. And in 2017, FCD created and staffed a model farm in the reserve to develop and pass on the new techniques to the local farmers.
Due to lack of law enforcement by GOB, none of these efforts have stemmed the tide of destruction. What is left of the Vaca Reserve is a two mile wide redoubt along the great Chiquibul forest northern border. Should this last buffer fall, the natural wealth and watersheds that is the Chiquibul would be exposed and vulnerable. FCD is struggling to keep the Vaca alive.
As we entered the reserve, the dusty road is bordered by cleared land, burnt farms and blackened forest. We passed Belizean farmers replacing charred fence posts, Guatemalan farmers plowing recently burned fields, and a family picking through the scraps at a mobile sawmill. Mile after mile of a barren and scorched land lay before and behind us.
As we made our way south through the reserve, the browns and blacks and burnt stench of the emptied Vaca landscape gradually gave way to the greens and musty smells of the tropical forests near the Chiquibul. Two miles from the Chiquibul National Park northern border deep ruts and fallen trees blocked the road forcing us to leave our pickup truck. We shouldered our packs and trudged along the overgrown trail ducking under, over and around tangled forest growth. The southern border of Vaca and the northern reaches of the Chiquibul were thankfully still intact and healthy. From this point on, the only sign of humans was the trail we were following and a pile of trash left by either the BDF or the British forces training in Belize.
The following morning we drove another forest road towards the Caballo conservation post to document what damage the wildfires had done to the Chiquibul, and hopefully trace the origins of the fires. In fifteen minutes we left the lush verdure of the Chiquibul I know, for a demonic land of white ash and charcoal. Tree falls again blocked the road forcing us to continue on foot.
We hiked past a seemingly healthy forest giant with plumes of smoke feathering up from the base of its massive trunk. Red coals glowed from deep inside the buttressed roots. Soon the magnificent tree would begin to weaken and crash to the forest floor. Every half hour we would hear another behemoth fall. The forest crumbled onto itself as we hiked.
We climbed a ridge line to get a better view of the fire damage and to fly a drone to capture some aerial photos of the destruction. Rivers of white ash flowed down the hillside. We think of fire leaving blackened charred remains, but here the fire burned so hot that all the carbon in the vegetation oxidized, leaving an alabaster outline where trees had fallen.
All eyes were watery, though I suspect not only because of the smoke. The natural fire regime of these tropical forest tend to be fire resistant. Rafael Manzanero, the Executive Director of FCD, has roamed the forests of the Chiquibul since a young boy, and had never seen destruction on such a large scale in these forests. The landscape he worked so hard for so many years to conserve was gone. He was determined to find out where the fires started.
We returned to the truck and drove south towards the Cebada Conservation Post. The day before a team of rangers found a cattle pasture with barbed wire fencing and charred fields. They thought this might have been were the fires originated.
Leaving the truck, we picked our way through more burnt landscape and out through blackened fields to Belize’s Western border. One hundred meters from the border, thirty cattle languidly grazed around a freshly bulldozed lake and a sturdy concrete feeding trough with a zinc shade. Barbed wire fences crisscrossed the scene with bright blue, freshly painted gates separating pastures. Fields of pumpkin and corn checkered the landscape, surrounded by freshly burned fields and grassland. The pastoral scene would have been serene if not illegal — all was within Belizean territory and the Chiquibul National Park.
While I flew the drone to document the incursion and searched for the source of the wildfires, two rangers began cutting barbed wire and pulling out fence posts. Two other rangers guarded our flanks hidden in what little vegetation was left on the hill. Poor peasants could not afford thirty head of cattle let alone the infrastructure to support them. The cattle barons, these invaders, had money and possibly firepower to support their invasion of Belize. Without BDF backup, the FCD rangers were targets for cattle barons and poor villagers alike.
As I packed the drone away and prepared for the hike back to the truck, a ranger scanning the neighboring hillside spotted a lone figure in the distance. He wore a white long sleeved shirt and a tattered woven sombrero. His back was to us as he rhythmically swung a machete back and forth, slicing what little bush was left on the cleared hillside. A white dog relaxed in the nearby grass, another sniffed around the cut bush. The man was clearly within Belizean territory.
After a brief discussion, the rangers decided to interdict the illegal alien clearing Belizean land. They formulated a plan based on their years of experience. Three rangers would hide behind what little cover there was and stealthily approach from the south west. The remaining rangers would spread out and remain hidden to the east of the man.
It was a textbook ambush.
As three rangers approached from the SE, downwind so the dogs would not sense them, they saw the man’s bag and water bottle under a lone tree in a nearby field. A line of high bush bordered the field. Knowing the man would walk to the tree for lunch, the rangers crouched behind the line of brush and waited for the man to walk past.
Five minutes passed. The harsh sun beat down on rangers and man alike. The only sound was the metallic swish of the machete slashing. Ten minutes passed and still the man chopped, stopping a few times to wipe his forehead and survey his work.
At fifteen minutes, the dog sleeping in the grass sat up, ears perked forward, nose tilted upwards sniffing the air in the direction of the rangers. Then the dog stood, stared, and meandered back toward the man who had finally stopped chopping and was walking toward the sapling in the field, hungry after a long morning.
It was over in seconds. As the man passed the brush line, he was confronted by three armed camouflaged men, ordering him to drop the machete and get to his knees. A few more commands had him on his belly and hands cuffed behind his back. At first site of the three rangers, the dogs turned and ran in terror, tails between legs, and only starting barking when at a safe distance.
One ranger immediately took up perimeter guard, while the other two took GPS readings, photos and determined the man’s name and nationality — Alejandro, Guatemalan. Yes he knew he was in Belize, but he had no choice he said.
The ranger on perimeter returned.
“We have to leave now. I hear chopping on the other side of the next hill.”
The barking dogs would soon raise an alarm. Helping the Guatemalan to his feet, the rangers switched his handcuffs to the front and we began a forced march away from the border to the safety of the truck a few miles away.
Four hours later, the Guatemalan was delivered to the San Ignacio police station. After a bit of confusion and some posturing by the officer in charge, several forms needed to be filled out— needless bureaucracy for these tired and hungry rangers. The Department of Immigration and the Forestry Department would be notified, they were the statutory bodies that would have to levy charges against the illegal.
FCD is not a security organization; their purview is not protecting our national sovereignty by guarding the border and arresting illegals. They are environmental protectors, tasked with safeguarding our watersheds, our forests, our wildlife in the Chiquibul. And yet these young men risk their lives — without backup — so we have clean water, clean air and a sovereign nation with secure borders.
Many have asked before “Where is our BDF? Why are they not confiscating cattle, arresting illegals, keeping our borders secure? Why is this happening?” There is no doubt that if FCD stopped their patrols, stopped the interdiction and arrest of illegals, the Chiquibul — our western border — would quickly collapse, our watersheds polluted, our wildlife poached and killed, our forests cleared. The question should not be “Why is this happening?” The question should be “Why do we Belizeans continue to allow this to happen?”
As we drove the Guatemalan out of the Chiquibul National Park, we passed two large trees with graffiti carved into their trunks. A message from the Guatemalans attempting to intimidate Belizeans. One had the name of a gang or a cartel carved into it, as if they were laying claim to the land with their mark. Carved into the other tree were the words “Los Esperamos” — “We Wait for You”.
FCD has been lucky so far that the well armed gangs or cartels from Guatemala are still “waiting”. There is a saying though that “If you keep walking back from good luck, you’ll come to bad luck.” Belizeans need to act, need to get our BDF operating — not just sitting — on our western border before FCD comes to bad luck.
Full Disclosure: Besides being a photojournalist, I am also a member of the Board of Directors of Friends for Conservation and Development — FCD.
