The Ministries of National Security and Forestry along with the Friends for Conservation and Development signed the first ever Chiquibul And Vaca Forests protocol today. The document outlines key details on how to operate in these areas. Now, obviously, operations and patrols have been conducted in these areas that is nothing new, but according to the team, this protocol officially presents a more organized and collaborative approach to protecting these areas.  Courtney Weatherburne has more:

Finally, after about a decade, the Chiquibul and Vaca Forests Joint Enforcement Protocol was drafted and signed today.

Rafael Manzanero - Executive Director, FCD
"It has certainly been a big relief now for us to be able to have a signed document that gives us the onus on us and how best to operate as a unit out there in the Chiquibul and now by extension, the Vaca Forest Reserve."

Now, the Friends for Conservation and Development (FCD) and the BDF along with their partners have done and continue to do intense patrolling and monitoring of these areas specifically the Chiquibul where the Guatemalan encroachments are most rampant. But there have been some shortfalls.

Felix Enriquez - CEO, Defence
"This joint forces protocol has been deemed necessary and the conversation has ensued at the national security council on various occasions when standard operational procedures were not followed or not in place. In many occasions again when we have noticed that perhaps we could have been more prudent in the way we follow procedures and the way we work with each other."

Now all of those procedures are clearly outlined in writing.

Hon. John Saldivar - Minster of National Security
"What this protocol does now is describe all the lines of communication and who is in charge of what and clearly specifies so that these operations can really go on much smoothly and once we have more effective patrolling and working in the area then we believe that will translate into more effective enforcement. People know exactly who is to report to who, what are we supposed to do under what circumstances, depending on what we find out there if it something that has to do with forestry, if it is an immigration matter, if it is a customs matter, all of that is clearly now defined."

Rafael Manzanero
"As an NGO, for us it is critical, you know just give it one example, if the police or forestry is not there, this enables us to do that kind of work so we have done it in the past but in reality only internal to that system but now as an official document basically it gives us more the due diligence on how best we can do that kind of work."