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As conservationists, the FCD is recommending immediate action to arrest this deforestation, and so, while he was available yesterday, we spoke with the Executive Director about it. Here's what he told us:

Rafael Manzanero, Executive Director - FCD
"This is sort of a reconnaissance that we do every year and it is done normally prior to the dry weather because that is the current sort of activities that would tend to occur over the many years. So this year as part of that we did an overflight and this happened about two weeks ago. We manage to confirmed that there are some 17-18 new clearings that have already taken place. We don't really know the acreage right now, because that can only be done through a ground reconnaissance, but there are 17 of the new clearings that we can observed at this present time."

Daniel Ortiz
"What does that mean for the FCD? How worrying is that for you all?"

Rafael Manzanero, Executive Director - FCD
"It is worrying because we certainly understand that as the dry weather is setting in and particularly that this will be a long dry weather. Then we can anticipate that if we don't really halt it or if we don't really put the interventions then 17 can multiply really fast. It can be 3,4,5 times, so we certainly can understand that the peak of the season for clearing is basically now on and so we can lose the acreage that we have been noting over the years which has amounted to in average it becomes about 200 acres or 200 hectares, which basically means over 500 acres every year. That is one that is pretty much scary enough as we are losing this forest right along the western border."

"We don't really have a sort of a comprehensive understanding on how much is being lost because whenever we look at the environmental impacts, we are looking at land degradation, on the wild animals, we are looking at any contaminants on the water. so it's a lot of things, but at least what we can say is that based on only the carbon stocks that a forest would have - once there is a standing forest and if the forest is being cut away and slashed, over the years and looking at the annual, in terms of every year of losses that Belize has, only in terms of carbon. We are not looking at water nor the wildlife or timber. We are losing approximately over 1 million dollars' worth of carbon stocks."

The FCD is recommending the activation of patrols and operations to suppress the advance in the clearing of primary forests in the areas affected.

The major areas of impact are noticeable on the northern section of the Caracol Archaeological Reserve and on the southern region of the Chiquibul, known as the Cebada area.