New Wildlife Bill, But Who’s Left Out of the Decisions?

Belize is moving to modernize its wildlife laws. Cabinet has unveiled a new Wildlife Conservation and Management Bill to replace the decades-old act, a move welcomed by Belize Zoo Director Dr. Celso Poot and other conservationists. Officials also approved a one-year moratorium on hunting key species, including the white-lipped peccary, yellow-headed Amazon parrot, and brown brocket deer. But Poot says he wasn’t part of that decision and now questions how effective the moratorium will really be.

 

Dr. Celso Poot, Managing Director, Belize Zoo

“I am hoping this will have been guided by data. We do science to gather data to guide management to guide decision managing. Those are only three species. There are many species experiencing decreasing population trend. The yellow-headed Amazon is one of the number one pet in Belize. And it should not be for a year; these species take a while for the population to rebound. Now white-lipped peccary or what we called the warries when we did assessment of these species, the population is going down. You are not seeing the size of head of Warrie and you are only finding them in the large interior protected area. So, it is another welcomed one, but is a year enough? In terms of the brown-bracket deer. It is a fairly new specie we are talking about. It is data deficient. We need to study it more and see what the population is. So you put a moratorium on hunting the species. But the lay person would not know the difference between the brown and the red. So how will you enforce it. How will you know which deer is which deer.”

 

Dr. Poot contends that hicatee turtles should also be added to the list.

 

Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.

 

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