7 News Belize

Elrington Says Conservation is For The Birds, Belize Need Food and Money!
posted (September 19, 2017)
And Elrington's views on conservation, generally, and a moratorium on offshore drilling are also out of line with the Government position. He said Belize can't afford to ignore the possibility of offshore oil reserves when it is so poor:...

Hon. Wilfred Elrington, Minister of Home Affairs
"We can't pay for hospital. We can't pay for education. We can't pay for schools, but we are not supposed to touch the petroleum. We are not even to find out what is there, because the attitude is don't touch it. I don't know why it's being left there. The history has shown that you can exploit petroleum. But we are not into find out what we have. Because somehow or the other that's going to hurt us. That's going to destroy the reef. In this day and age we have got to think for ourselves. Because if you are starving, but it is content first to starve so as to ensure that the fishes are there - that the manatees are going to survive, why the human beings are dying. I can't rationalize it."

Elrington also praised the Mennonite Community for using natural resources such as timber to build. Conservationists argue that Mennonite foresters have denuded vast swathes of natural habitats in their industrial logging activities.

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7 News Belize