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How well do these new rangers perform, and can they do the tough job of protecting the embattled Forest Reserve? Well, FCD invited the media today to witness the graduation of these 18 rangers from their training program, and 7News attended. Daniel Ortiz reports:

Daniel Ortiz reporting
These men in military fatigues may look like a brand new law enforcement unit run by the state, but actually, this is the for the Friends for Conservation and Development.??These 18 new rangers have gotten training in First aid, wilderness patrolling and surveillance, navigation, intelligence gathering, biology, wildlife Rescue and health, search and rescue, protected areas Law enforcement, Special Constable training. All that is important especially the enforcement aspect since the Chiquibul, which is now their new home, is constantly under threat. But each ranger is primarily a conservationist.

Derrick Chan
"I remember when Friends for Conservation started, we were actually like rangers, but we were not really patrolling as per say, as we do today, but we were exploring nature, learning about nature and then we started that with what was called Youth Environmental Action Group. So you the rangers now, you came in particularly as rangers. But you will learn more about Friends for Conservation and Development and what protected management areas is about, apart from the training that you have gone through now."

Rafael Manzanero - Executive Director, FCD
"The purpose of our job is to protect those species that cannot speak. And they need help and the ranger is out there really to protect those things; the animals and the plants. So, that's really a very honorable job for all of you to be able to do."

But, they cannot forget the many responsibilities they now have to take on, being the frontline protectors of this natural treasure.

Rafael Manzanero - Executive Director, FCD
"In a nutshell, a FCD ranger is a multi-faceted person. And for us, that is what we want really to indicate to the country of Belize. In the Chiquibul National Park, the main tasking of the park ranger is described as follows: 1. Monitoring and surveillance. How do we do that? We would do it through patrols. 2. Environmental enforcement. Recall, its environmental enforcement, but please, it's not a national security stuff that we are doing. National security is for the military forces, so our one is environmental protection. Of course, we are able to do that through a joint forces effort."

Today, the new rangers demonstrated that they can coordinate the takedown of Guatemalan illegals whom they will inevitably encounter while on the job.

While the rangers can operate independently, they would prefer to collaborate with the BDF and police since they do not want to usurp the jurisdiction or responsibilities of these law enforcement agencies who are better trained in border management.

Rafael Manzanero - Executive Director, FCD
"The third one in terms of out tasking as a ranger also is: to provide staff support to other staff that we have out there in the field, such as the research unit here with us from FCD and they, from time to time will call that we need rangers to provide the security and the support to other technical staff. The rangers can also provide support to Las Cuervas Research Station, that is another 20 kilometers from here, where we have about 5 buildings, where we can accommodate up to 70 people at one given time and that is really for research and for educational purposes. If required, then the rangers can also be able to provide this support, in terms of ensuring that everything is okay in those locations. The 4th activity of a ranger is also mobilization. Mobilizing the people from one end to another and perhaps it is one of the things that really also is very much instrumental to the Belize Defence Force. The other objective or the aim or the tasking of a ranger is also maintenance. Your jobs is alo to maintain our buildings, this location, conservation posts that we have across the Chiquibul range. So, we have this one here which is Tapir Camp, we have Sebo Chico Conservation Post and we have Rio Blanco Conservation Post and hopefully another two would be coming up which would be Caballo and Sebada. Another tasking is rescue and first aid. It has taken us a long time for us now to have a unit that I feel comfortable enough that if something happens to us out there, we should know how to react and we can be able to do rescue and first aid out there across the range."

Just to clarify, the operation which we showed you was only a demonstration to illustrate how the rangers will perform while conducting their enforcement responsibilities.