Ten‑Year Deal Boosts Chiquibul Conservation Efforts

We head now to the Chiquibul, where efforts to protect endangered scarlet macaws and better manage sensitive forest areas are getting a long-term boost. Today at the Las Cuevas Research Station, the Forest Department and Friends for Conservation and Development (FCD) signed a new ten-year agreement. Along with the main deal, two separate operating agreements were also signed, covering farming activity in a reserve area and management of an outpost near the Bald Hills to control access to protected lands. Here’s what the Minister of Sustainable development had to say.

 

Orlando Habet, Minister of Sustainable Development

“So the Memorandum of Understanding speaks about the continued collaboration with conservation with scientific research and certainly wherever FCD can give us some type of information and share certainly the data that they collect during the time that they have the memorandum of understanding ongoing which had started the very first one I think started back in 1992 and they have gotten extensions and now giving another 10-year memorandum for them to. It really falls within the Chiquibul Forest Reserve, but when the researchers were here early, they noticed that this would be a particular area that has capacity for research. There’s a cave nearby, and so they bring in the young macaws which they get from the trees, they might fall or they see that they are endangered, they bring them here also. And then when there is such a time when they are capable of flying out and fending for themselves, then they have a release of these macaws. But also looking at the flora and fauna and studying whatever is there, and every so often FCD gets researchers from some universities, whether it’s in Europe or in the United States, and they come and they spend some time doing the research, and they also share that information with FCD, who also shares it with the department.”

 

The new agreement now gives conservation teams the long-term backing they need to protect the Chiquibul and safeguard the scarlet macaws that call it home.

 

 

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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