GASPAR VEGA ADMITS RESPONSIBILITY FOR ROSEWOOD DEBACLE.

** Gaspar Vega, Cabinet Minister of the UDP and deputy prime minister



DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER, CABINET MINISTER OF LANDS AND OTHER DEPARTMENTS (?) ADMITS HE AND HIS FELLOW CABINET MEMBERS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DEBACLE OF ROSEWOODD HARVESTING/EXPORT SCAMS COMING OUT OF THE TOLEDO DISTRICT

In a talk show TV media morning show, the Forestry chief ( forget his name ) and the Minister of Forestry, GASPAR VEGA admitted that HE PERSONALLY with inducement from his fellow CABINET MINISTERS, was responsible for the DEBACLE in the raping of the TOLEDO FORESTS, particularly in ROSEWOOD being shipped to ASIA and other rare and expensive tree species.
He explained that even with a CLOSED forest harvesting season, he has been inundated with villagers claiming they were poor and needed money so bad, and other sob stories, they wanted out of season PERMITS, to cut and sell rare woods. He also said, that his fellow CABINET MINISTERS were also coming to him, asking for EXEMPTIONS to illegal PERMITS from their constituent voters. Gaspar Vega said he has been unable to resist supporting or not supporting, a paper management policy for the Forests of BELIZE, because the pressure from voters, put him in an untenable position as a politician and member of the ONE PARTY MEMBER GOVERNMENT.
ANY IDEA OF FORESTRY MANAGEMENT IS NULL AND VOID! IMPOSSIBLE TO ENFORCE

There was a lot more in the same vein in the TV interview. Crying about the sad tales people bring him, or outright lies, as they try to outwit government policy protections on Forest Reserves. The bottom line is; THERE ARE POLICIES and management controls, but nobody at CABINET and senior bureaucratic level can enforce them for self interest of their jobs.
The FORESTRY department have a staff of 42. They have not been able to put check points on the ONE road out of the TOLEDO DISTRICT, to investigate trucks carrying contraband lumber, and the Chief Forestry Officer has to stamp ILLEGAL CONTRABAND forest lumber loads of rare wood species sought by ASIANS for export as legal, because the CABINET MINISTER, GASPAR VEGA is issuing out of season and illegal permits to do so, to secure VOTES for his political party.

It was refreshing to hear a Cabinet Minister admit to responsibility for the chaos to do with our harvesting of rare lumber tree species.

Essentially we have policies and action papers, but nobody is enforcing them. The PATRIMONY of Belize is being rapaciously harvested and exported, at the behest of less than a 100 VOTERS and a weak government. The cynics claim Vega is taking BRIBES. But even if what he says is true and he is not taking BRIBES, there seems no way, that even with a new policy of requiring every tree harvested of a rare species and with Central Farm Agriculture Station producing seedlings and a law requiring a cutter of a very limited number of trees of exotic hardwoods, to replant 20 new seedlings in the forest in order to get a permit to cut one. We would not with the size of our government and the limited ability of our bureaucrats, be able to apply such a thing anyway? I remember the loss of our BELIZEAN PINE FORESTS, the loss of our MAHOGANY TREES, etc. At the time, I and others, cried out at the senseless policies as we exported resin rich pine trees abroad and nowadays we import pine lumber of an inferior species. The imported pine lumber lasts about 13 to 15 years, yet houses in Belize made of our own resin rich pine lumber we grew here ONCE UPON A TIME, still stand today, after over a hundred years, as good as ever, once you sand off the accumulated paint. It will be 50 years or more before anything like that will grow back. Jungle trees and exotic hardwood trees are solitary individuals, growing in a supportive enclave niches, seperate from each other and have a localized environment of support from other trees in order to grow successfully. The tree species that are rare are unique in their environmental niche. Mahogany and Cedar have gone the same way. Harvesting nowadays is of young trees, and even cut out of the proper moon time, by voracious loggers, so they are worthless as lumber anyway. They get eaten by wood lice, or decay and rotten.
We don´t have much of exotic wood species, but they are expremely valuable at the retail end market in ASIA. We are selling off our patrimony of the next four or five generations of Belizeans. We have the policies and plans to protect them, but are unable to do so, because Gaspar Vega says, of politics. The need for VOTES.