Cayo cave prompts wonder and controversy
#17228
10/01/03 07:09 AM
10/01/03 07:09 AM
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Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 79,843 oregon, spr
Marty
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Cayo cave prompts wonder and controversy Tuesday, September 30, 2003
With the tourism boom showing no signs of letting up, there will be increasing pressure to find new visitor attractions and bring more formal organisation to existing ones. The result is that while the natural wonder may retain its beauty, the socio-political fallout can get downright ugly. The cave I visited yesterday is a good example.
Janelle Chanona, Reporting Getting to Barton Creek Cave is itself an adventure, which includes more than seven miles of bumpy road, and in the rainy season, at least two river crossings.
Once on site, tour guide Gonzalo Pleitez gets our inflatable kayaks ready for the river.
But before we hit the water, we hit a brick wall...or in this case, a chain link fence.
Guard "We need to have the serial numbers for all the tour guide license, because they request that each person that is a tour guide supposed to have their license to enter the cave."
The National Institute of Culture and History has stationed two employees at Barton Creek to monitor activities at the site and submit daily reports on the coming and goings. Visitors now need a permit to do the tour, a permit we don't have.
Guard "That is the rules they give us, we have it in paper."
Janelle Chanona "Well I don't have anything in paper Sir, so...."
Security Guard "Probably will give you the break to go in, but for the next time."
According to NICH, the new rules have become necessary because of the increasing popularity of the cave, and we're about to find out why.
Armed with powerful spotlights, we embark on a one and a half mile journey into the dark. Right off the bat, we glimpse the first attractions of Barton Creek and minutes later meet our welcoming party.
Thousands of bats now call this cave home, evidenced by the guano or bat droppings that appear in belts on the walls. But thousands of years ago, the Mayas did use this cave, though their remains are hidden from view in the high ridges above. Selected pieces have been relocated as proof positive of human occupation. (Shots of skull and pots)
But the real attractions of Barton Creek Cave are the impressive stone structures, millennia in the making. Twisted and gnarled, they rise from the depths of the dark like jellyfish and shine like cut crystal.
Gonzalo "Gonzo" Pleitez, Tour Guide "Really, Barton Creek, if you focus on it a lot, has to do with mostly geology, cause it's very difficult to talk about the ancient Maya beliefs inside Barton Creek unless you can convince the people that they are going to see a lot of evidence. Otherwise in here you got to picture it that at one time the Mayas came in."
In certain sections of the cave, the ceiling drops to just a few feet above the water level and navigation becomes tricky.
But the tranquillity of the tour belies the turbulence that has been boiling at the mouth of the cave.
Mike Bogaert, Landowner "The Barton Creek cave experience is not just going into the cave, it's coming into our community. It's coming into the community we live in and respecting the community. The government has done none of that."
Until recently, forty-six year old Mike Bogaert and his wife Kristina owned the land used to access the Barton Creek Cave, land he says was wrongly taken away from them.
Mike Bogaert "There's not a lot of trust among what's gonna happen with guys with guns, and she's terrified. And so I backed off, they came, they took the land. I've had guns pointed at me out here; I've had all kinds of trouble with the government workers. They don't respect any private land. They just took it, no compensation to me, no negotiations, nothing. Come in at gunpoint, take the land and goodbye."
For the past seven years Bogaert has rented canoes, lights and batteries to tour guides. But coming from a monopoly background, competition has now become a tough pill to swallow.
Mike Bogaert "They are now letting renegade tour guides-I call them renegade tour guides--leave canoes and stuff and all kinds of things at the supposed national park. Now I don't get any rental business, because they're leaving the stuff over there. So the business I have is diminishing and going away."
"What I fear is going to happen is this is taken over. They're gonna run this, it makes profit because a lot of people are coming here, and it's going to be turned over to a private organisation. It's going to be overrun with cruise ship business; we are going to terrorize our Mennonite community. I've already lost any privacy I've ever had back here now with these people here, and we are going to destroy Barton Creek Cave as a tourist destination."
But the government insists they are at Barton Creek to properly manage and protect the sensitive remains at the site. According to the Department of Archaeology's Jaime Awe, the Bogaerts have been compensated and the appropriation of the land was only necessary because the family refused to compromise with the government. G.O.B. says in the end, they just want to ensure access to everyone, even those carrying canoes.
Mike Bogaert "I want the government to move. They came in here. They put a house right on my front yard, I've had my privacy disrupted, no privacy whatsoever now. I've got government employees all over, I've got people coming around my farm all times of night. If they want this, take my whole farm or leave. I cannot live here with the way they treat. There's no negotiations, there's no, "hi we're here to work with you together with the cave. These are our employees, they're gonna help...." There's none of that."
But G.O.B. is here to stay and everyone, including tour guides, will have to get used to the idea. Although conservation is at the heart of everyone's argument, the difficulty is to get all parties to agree on the best means.
Gonzalo "Gonzo" Pleitez "I would rather go to a place where I can get gear, or where I can dialogue with the landowner and say, "can you allow me permission. I will meet your expectations." And I'm not looking forward to going to anybody's property and just bypassing their rights. Caves are tricky. They are very tricky. We know that it's a national monument, I guess it belongs to the country, but at the same time you have to be able to respect landowners."
"I've been to many of the caves in Belize and I must say I'm very sad that when you walk into some caves you find people's names written on the walls. Well that's something that you are not going to see inside Barton Creek."
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Re: Cayo cave prompts wonder and controversy
#17230
10/01/03 08:29 AM
10/01/03 08:29 AM
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Anonymous
Unregistered
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Anonymous
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Imagine that, something ELSE for the cruise-shippers.... People, enjoy Belize now, for it's not going to be the same in a short time. The BZ government is making sure of that.
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Re: Cayo cave prompts wonder and controversy
#17231
10/01/03 09:01 AM
10/01/03 09:01 AM
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Joined: Apr 2003
Posts: 54 PA
stevej
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Re: Cayo cave prompts wonder and controversy
#17234
10/02/03 09:38 AM
10/02/03 09:38 AM
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Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 79,843 oregon, spr
Marty
OP

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OP
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In last night's newscast the former landowner of the area surrounding the Barton Creek cave, Mike Bogaert, claimed that his land was appropriated by government without compensation, and that government workers had threatened him with guns. Today, the Director for the Institute of Archaeology, Dr. Jaime Awe, spoke to News 5 about the attempts of both the Ministry of Natural Resources, and now the Ministry of Tourism and Culture, to work out a co-management agreement with Bogaert. Awe says for almost four years government tried without success to arrive at an agreement that would split the fees charged for access to the cave with Bogaert and allow the government to protect and monitor access to the cave, which contains archaeological remains. He says the Ministry of Tourism was forced to go to Cabinet and request that the land be appropriated, and that the Ministry of Natural Resources is attempting to work out compensation, but there are still some legal issues between Bogaert's attorney and the ministry. He reminds the public that all archaeological sites, including caves, ultimately belong to the people of Belize and need protection.
Dr. Jaime Awe, Director, Institute of Archaeology "Why are we doing this? Well, like I said, all caves, all archaeological sites are the property of the people of Belize. It is our responsibility at the Institute of Archaeology to manage these sites, to manage them responsibly and for the country. It is also under the laws of Belize, legal to provide access to everyone. We cannot be exclusive of access. By us establishing a presence out there, and when we demarcated the land Mr. Bogart had a structure in the
area that we were going to claim, but in good faith we decided, no we should not take that area with the structure, so we bypasses it to ensure, one, that we did not take his structure and also to allow him access to the stream and
hence, access to the cave. We are out there, we have a small building for the caretakers to live in, we do charge a fee and the caretakers are in there, because Barton Creek Cave has had a long history of destructive activity. There are human remains in that cave that in my personal project surveyed, recorded and that were subsequently removed from their original context and placed in areas so that tourists could see them better. That is not the way to go about doing research or doing cave tourism. Our caretakers are out there to ensure, one, that you don't have five hundred people in the cave at the same time. Caves are very fragile environments, and if we don't manage them and if we don't limit the number of people going in at any one time, we will destroy this resource. And if we destroy that resource, nobody will want to go visit Barton Creek cave
again. So our presence there is for conservation purposes and for the proper management of a natural, cultural resource that belongs to the Belize."
Awe says that there was a time when police did accompany Ministry of Natural Resource personnel to the site after Bogaert illegally removed survey markers posted on the land. He says that as far as he knows, however, no guns were ever pointed at Bogaert.
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