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The Origin Of That Goff’s Caye Lease
posted (July 15, 2014)
Last week, we told you about the situation which was developing on Goff's Caye where an unauthorized survey was being conducted, where the unknown individual seemed to have plans to develop the property.

The problem is that Goff Caye is crown land and one of the national cayes protected under the Coastal Zone Management Authority. Today, it remains a major tourist attraction, but in 2001, the Lands Department granted a lease to Ramon Cervantes.

But if it's supposed to be protected and managed by the CZMAI, why then was a lease granted to an important piece of crown land? That's what we asked Lands Commissioner Wilbert Vallejos to explain to us today. Here's how Cervantes managed to get rights to that land:

Wilbert Vallejos - Commissioner of Lands & Surveys
"In 2001 Mr. Ramon Cervantes applied to the government of Belize for permission to survey a portion of I believe the northern part of Goff's Caye and he subsequently got permission to do the survey and after the survey a lease was granted. Something to note from the contents or the conditions of the lease when it was granted was that it was granted first of all for a term of 7 years. During the 7 years the leasee had the option to extend the term for further term of 50 years, but it had to be done within the 7 years period and then convert the approval of lease that was granted to them into a registered lease, which is something more official and has more weight. The purpose of the lease and in going back to the lease is one of the conditions was not to deny access to the land to the public - it was some sort of public use lease. Coastal Zone Management Authority not so long after the lease was issued objected to the lease being issued. Obviously in 1999 that list of protected cayes was develop and handed over to Coastal Zone for management, so they were concern. The lease was look and reviewed by the then legal counsel and he obviously look at it from the legal point of view in terms of contract - it's a lease, government offers and you accept, payment of conditions and what's not. So in his legal opinion he said that the person who got the lease, the leasee couldn't be prevented to do physical developments of the land, but going back and reviewing the lease and finding out what the intention was like I said earlier to allow the public to have access to it, so obviously Mr. Cervantes will have had exclusive possession of the lease if the public was to have right of occupation or access to it as well. It seemed that in his legal opinion that granted a right to Mr. Cervantes shouldn't have happened through a lease, but more through a license."

Vallejos says that the Legal advisor to the Lands and Surveys Department advised them that a lease was the wrong method by which Cervantes was granted rights to develop a portion of Goff's Caye. Nevertheless, Cervantes didn't do much on the Island and the lease has since expired. That has given the Lands Department the grounds to cancel it completely, but the unanswered question is still that somebody had conducted an unauthorized survey of the caye. The lands commissioner told us today that they've been investigated who it was, but they've been unsuccessful.

Wilbert Vallejos - Commissioner of Lands & Surveys
"We have been unable however to find any person responsible for the survey activities. We understand that it has been suspended whoever it is that was doing it. We checked our records since 2002 when that lease was issued and when the matter was brought to our attention by Coastal Zone Management and we haven't issued a permission to survey or a subsequent lease. So we were surprised as everybody else would be and we try to do investigations as well to see if we can find somebody that we can put a face to and hold responsible."

"Its common belief or practice that the moment there is a land issue or land dispute that it is link to the Lands Department. The Lands and Survey Department is a land administration system in this country, but it doesn't mean however that in this case the Lands Department has granted any authority to anybody to conduct this survey."

Lease has been cancelled. Ramon Cervantes has since spoken to the media saying that he wasn't the one who was surveying the land on Goff's Caye.

Vallejos says that at the Lands Department there is a list of Cayes that should be protected. He adds that the practice will now be that the different managers of those cayes should always be consulted to ensure that there is no reoccurrence of another situation like this one on Goff's Caye.

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