The Belize government has effectively dismissed a plan by the United States-based international mining company, Vulcan Materials to acquire lands.
The company is acquiring several hundred acres of land off the Coastal Road, near Gales Point Manatee, in an area called White Ridge Farms.
Sustainable Development Minister, Orlando Habet, confirmed that the matter was raised during the weekly Cabinet meeting and senior officials within the John Briceño administration have made a collective policy decision that no surface mining, including strip, open pit, or mountain top, shall be permitted near Gales Point Village.
“As you know, this has been out there that the company, Vulcan, has an interest in acquiring, I don’t know if they have acquired, it’s a private deal with White Ridge Farms to purchase some farms that White Ridge owns in the Manatee area and all the information we got was that they were interested in doing some mining in that area,” Habet said, speaking on News 5 television
“As you know, we have had the voices out there saying that it is not a good type of investment to make, especially in terms of the ecosystems within that area. We have villagers, the community from Gales Point Manatee going against it. But to be fair, our team, along with, I think, the Minerals Unit from the Ministry of Natural Resources met with the people from Vulcan to hear them out, but whilst we had our Cabinet meeting, the Cabinet decided as the executive arm of government that they will not be entertaining any type of development that has to do with any type of mining at this time,” he added.
Habet said the Cabinet’s decision” really was that it will not support any project development in Gales Point Manatee that will involve any type of mining, given the fact that there is this extremely sensitive nature of the area.
“Of course, from my ministry, we are looking at the biodiversity and all the benefits from the watershed, certainly that immense ecological value and ecological systems that surround the entire area. So it was not prudent for us to engage in that type of development,” he told television viewers.
Last month, Kenrick Williams, the chief executive officer in the Ministry of Sustainable Development, predicted that the government would not support moves by Vulcan Materials Company, the US’s largest producer of construction aggregates, primarily crushed stone, sand and gravel, and a major producer of other construction materials including asphalt and ready-mixed concrete.
The company serves markets in 20 states, the District of Columbia, Mexico, and the Bahamas.
CMC/
