7 News Belize

The Referendum That Lives On
posted (February 28, 2017)
Five years ago OCEANA and members of the environmental community staged a "people's referendum" on offshore drilling. The unofficial vote attracted almost 30,000 Belizeans, 96% of which voted against allowing offshore oil exploration in the country. At the time, Prime Minister Dean Barrow was in the middle of campaigning for his second term, and promised that if elected, an official referendum would be held. Now, half a decade later, there is no sign of a referendum on the horizon, but the environmental community is making sure the topic does not fade from memory. The Coalition to Save Our Natural Heritage held a press conference to commemorate the People's Referendum and remind people that the fight's still going...

Amanda Burgos Acosta, Executive Director - Audubon Society
"The thing is that we are here and like I said it's a commemoration. We do want to keep this and we have been very vigilant in keeping this topic in the consciousness of the public, in the consciousness of the politicians, because it is something that we are holding stalwart to. We are not wavering. We have the support of the populist. As you can see San Pedro has rallied their troops. We've seen Hopkins, we've seen Placencia, and we've seen Caye Caulker. We have lots of nice "no oil" imagery from people. We have had a call for people to be sensational and they have been."

"We've had supports from all across the country and we want to voice that we still have that. BTIA is an active member of the coalition. BTIA has 800 members and I'm talking hotel tourism industry. We have the support of the Placencia Producers Co-op Society. We have the support of the tour associations. We have the Chunox Association, the Sarteneja Fisher Association. We are talking roughly between just Sarteneja and Chunox we are talking 200 fishermen, who have voiced their concerns. We have a set of letters that have been produced as recent as last week that have been sent to CEO Hyde for a call to take action. A call to officially ban. We have had moments of great excitement when we thought the ban was near. However that has not really come to fruition and so we keep calling and we keep being the voice of this national cry that there really needs to be some form of legislation, formal action to be taken."

Janelle Chanonna, Vice President - OCEANA Belize
"I am sure you all are saying "oh well, they are going to say the same things over and over." The reality is that however many times we need to say what we are going to be sharing this morning - we will have to say that, because it needs to be said. Why? It's incalculable what the cost would be of our continued inaction on this issue especially."

"We would not be immune to the realities that befallen other countries that have not done everything possible to make sure that there is a balance between the people and the environment and that has been the constant call from the conservation community."

"We want to advocate and collaborate with the government of Belize to come up with a collective determination of what our future looks like for our country, for our home, for our Belize."

"This call to national leaders is not new and while the projects have different names and in different locations, the painful truth is that the issues that have plaque us for 20 years are the same issues that plaque us today."

Government has offered little to no information about the state of offshore oil exploration in Belize since early this year when they officially cancelled multibeam and deep sea surveys.

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