Almost exactly two years ago - the name Chukka Tours was thrust into the headlines when Tom Greenwood, Yohnnie Rosado and their organization FECTAB lambasted the Jamaican company for exercising an unfair advantage in the local market.
After weeks of sustained, intense animosity and bad mouthing - things died down - and for the past two years, Chukka has been quietly doing its business - emerging as the leading tour operator in a crowded local landscape. And their competitors have come to accept it - that, after all, is the nature of foreign investment.
But now the locals have drawn another line in the sand - this time they say Chukka has gone too far with by erecting a rappelling platform at the Jaguar Paw site.
FECTAB held a press conference today to explain what they call the perils of this planned attraction.
Tom Greenwood led the charge:..
Jules Vasquez reporting
This is the chunk of stone that Greenwood says he picked up at Nohoch Chen - which we know as Jaguar Paw. He told the gathering of tour guides and operators that the stone tumbled from this cliff face when Chukka was installing a platform for rappelling.
Tom Greenwood
"What alerted us is we got to the cave site and I heard this pneumatic drill and then when I watch the cave entrance and I looked up again - and I sat there for a while then all of a sudden - oh God!."
"You have to see it. You are sitting down here that day and this is there and you see this stone going bounce, bounce picking up speed and when it hits that water...whoosh. I can just translate that water going whoosh into red. I got scared."
"While the drilling was taking place this is what I picked up from the river. I knew where it fell because there were other pieces there and this was fresh. This fell from 180 feet. Now folks, that's a stone - 180 feet coming down on somebody's head. You think that helmet will save you. It will push the head and helmet down in your lungs."
The issue is that the much used cave tubing stream passes beneath the cliff face - and Greenwood says that it is a recipe for disaster:
Tom Greenwood
"Now, déjà vu - my God we are not only floating through the place but every time we go there we have to look up to see if anything is falling. What part of somebody can be killed do the authorities don't understand?"
And that is what he says triggered this campaign to have that rappelling platform removed - as a matter of urgency:
Tom Greenwood
"What part of stone on top of somebody's head below or a camera or a helmet do you not understand? You just decided that that has to be moved."
But they have no confidence in the regulatory body - which is NICH - because they believe that NICH gives Chukka preferential treatment on what is supposed to be a level playing field:
David Almendarez, "Cave Tubing R Us"
"This is supposed to be a national park. This is supposed to be an archaeological site. This is supposed to be somewhere pristine and somewhere that has equal access to everybody. However, over the past years and especially over the past few weeks we notice the playing field is created to be unleveled and the people standing to the bottom of the barrel are we the Belizean tour operators."
And that is the other issue: that Nohoch chen is an archeological site:
David Almendarez, "Cave Tubing R Us"
"The national park is being turn into an amusement park where foreign entities are allowed to come and do whatever they want to do in our national park. Nowhere else in the world this is done but in Belize. Those cave systems I have been taught by Dr. Jaime Awe when we attended their NICH courses are millions of years old. So if they are millions of years old, there are so much cherish, how can we have foreign entities rappelling off the front of it and how come no Belizean are allowed to rappel off of that. I am against the platform. I am against the fact that they are using this as if this is their own personal stuff."
Ricardo Perazo - Tour Guide
"We are not against Chukka right. We want to make this clear. The thing that we are against is them build the platform there and then destroy what is our patrimony. They have to understand that that is an archaeological site. Then where is NICH? What are they doing? They are not interested in culture and history. That is the real thing."
Yohnny Rosado - cavetubing.com
"I have ATVs jungle tour and I would love for NICH to send me a letter tomorrow; 'Mr. Rosado, you can send your ATVs through the archaeological site.' No I will not do it and they told me if you want to do anything, find your land and I did find my land. Matters if Chukka is from here or not from here, no company should have the rights to do business on archaeological grounds."
Tom Greenwood
"Why does this happen here? Why is it that seemingly anybody can come here and do whatever they want?"
And now those operators and guides say they will do what they must to stop them:
Tom Greenwood
"We are putting the whole kaboozel together and send it to the insurance companies that insure the ships guests. You what's going to happen, they are going to stop that in its tracks. We will do whatever is necessary to take that thing down from there before some unfortunate human being or beings get that on top of their helmets and on their shoulder or whatever."
And so, if you follow the argument - the greatest, moist urgent issue risk is this rock and others like it which may fall - but - the thing is Chukka says no such rock fell or could fall - and moreover why would that International company let anything fall on their own guests who are tubing in the river below?:
Tom Greenwood
"Jules, if I am a big international company, green globe responsibility and all that. Why would I build a facility over an entrance way to cave 180 feet in the air that sees about 100,000 people floating in including thousands of their own guests."
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