 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Upstream from San Ignacio, near the headwaters, the Macal is the source of an environmental controversy that has drawn international attention. Fortis, a Canadian power company, plans to build a hydroelectric dam on the river. According to an environmental impact assesssment conducted by the Canadian International Development Agency, the proposed dam will flood thousands of acres of rare habitat. The resulting reservoir would cover 2.5 square miles and extend approximately 12 miles up river from the dam site, the study says.
Although the dam would only generate a relatively small amount of power, 7.3 megawatts, it could destroy extensive wildlife habitat unique to Central America, including much of the remaining range of the highly endangered scarlet macaw as well as critical jaguar habitat, opponents say.
Sharon Matola, director of the Belize Zoo and Tropical Education Center, says, "trading off millions of years of biological evolution for a hydro scheme which, at best, would last 50 years, is an environmental crime of the highest degree," according to Probe International, a Canadian public interest organization.
A recent environmental impact assessment conducted by the Natural History Museum of London advises that the dam at Chalillo should not be built because it would cause "significant and irreversible harm" to Belizean wildlife.
Beyond possibly destroying a rare natural environment, the construction of the Chalillo dam will have consequences for people living along the Macal River.
Albion Lotiff is a middle aged man, who was born on a farm beside the Macal, the same farm where his father was born before him. He lives close to the river and shares concern for its future. "If they put in another dam," says Lotiff, "you will be able to walk from San Ignacio to Chaa Creek (an distance of several miles by river)."
The new dam is not welcomed by many residents of San Ignacio and the surrounding area. "Damn the dam," says San Ignacio river guide, David Simpson, who makes his living taking eco-tourists on trips up the Macal.
This tension between conservationists and developers has polarized the debate between government officials who favor the dam and locals who oppose it. Kimo Jolly, an environmental educator at Sacred Heart Junior College in San Ignacio, lost his job as, supposedly for speaking out against the dam. And many organizations that depend on government funding have become cautious about taking an official position on the issue.
Despite recent protests and campaigns against the dam, developers aim to start construction as early as January. The decision to do so has been largely removed from local interests and seemingly facilitated by the economics and politics of a large multinational company operating in a small developing county. Fortis, Inc. has been approved to start construction on a dam it would not be allowed to build in its native Canada. In fact, many large dams in the U.S. and Canada have been decommissioned because they are not economically or environmentally sustainable.
Patrick McCully, in his book Silenced Rivers: The Ecology and Politics of Large Dams, suggests that the motivation behind many dams is the financially lucrative construction process and the prospect of controlling natural resources, not the long-term supply of power.
Debate over the dam has recently moved to the international arena, with non-governmental organizations such as the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the Sierra Club of Canada, Probe International, and the Belize Alliance of Conservation Non Governmental Organizations. High profile figures such has Harrison Ford and Robert Kennedy Jr. have also spoken out against the dam, but Fortis has not been dissuaded.
Opponents of the dam argue that the tensions surrounding the controversy are symptomatic of globalization, where short-term interests of developers from first world countries are pitted against long-term concerns of developing nations. The imbalance in the economics and politics between developers and local stakeholders seems to favor the short-term and less sustainable route. "The people making the decisions don't understand the problems like the local people," says Lotiff, "they just say yes, yes, yes, yes."
But unlike Lotiff, many riverside residents are not even aware of the controversy surrounding their river.
Wilmer Dorado, 14, often comes to the river's edge to water his horses and swim with brothers and friends. Dorado rides his horse freely, splashing in the river at sunset. He has never heard of the proposed dam, nor the controversy surrounding it, although its fate currently rests with legislators in the nation's capital. If the dam is built, it will forever change the future of the landscape for his generation.
-- Carlton Ward