What’s Happening at the Mountain Pine Ridge?

10 June 2010

Dear Editor,

As students about to graduate and enter the professional world of natural resources management (NRM), we are troubled by the devastation we have recently seen in the Mountain Pine Ridge Forest Reserve (MPRFR). In February 2010, we spent two weeks at the MPRFR on a Forest Ecology & Management field course that is part of our Bachelor in NRM program at UB. During this course we saw firsthand the importance of the MPRFR in protecting our country’s precious water resources and understood why appropriately managing the pine savanna ecosystem at the MPRFR is critical for sustaining these. But the pine savanna ecosystem is fragile as we saw from the bark beetle infestation in 2000 that left only a few areas of the reserve unaffected.

We just re-visited the MPRFR today and were shocked by the unsustainable logging practices being used in one of the few areas unaffected by the bark beetle. In this area “good” trees or “seed” trees that are necessary for producing a new generation of vigorous seedlings to rehabilitate the forest overtime had survived. But now trees are being logged in this area with little apparent intent to leave “seed” trees behind. Trees have been taken right along the creeks, loggers have left behind waste debris causing blockage to the waterways and we saw skidder tracks going right over creeks. Logging along slopes opposite to the Five Sister’s Lodge, near the Privacion area that has waters flowing directly into the Macal River, is worrying. The manner in which the entire logging operation is being carried out will increase erosion of soil into the water, decrease the beauty of the scenery for tourists, cause waste debris to accumulate as fuel for fires and ultimately deplete “good” seed stock. It is unsustainable!

We know that the Forest Department (FD) is aware of the logging because what we saw is clearly not an illegal concession. But what are the terms of this license and how often does FD make onsite monitoring visits? Could it be that FD approved the use of unsustainable logging practices through a short-term license that lends to a “creaming of the crop” approach rather than a management approach that ensures that there will always be pine in the MPRFR to log? We hope not since we think that one of the accomplishments of the FD is their move to a system of long-term sustainable logging licenses. Who has the license been granted to and are there any hidden interests that would allow such blatant unsustainable logging? Is politics more important than sound management? As up-and-coming natural resource managers, will there be any resources left for us to manage? In closing, we would really appreciate hearing from our Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment with respect to what is happening in the Mountain Pine Ridge.

Sincerely,

Lynelle Martinez and Celeshia Guy

University of Belize

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