We are not dealing with the Guatemalan army along our western border, we are dealing with a Guatemalan social problem, one that is not of our making, one we are not obligated to help solve — we have plenty of our own social problems to deal with. Belize’s problem is that people are coming across our western border illegally and harvesting our resources. Therefore the only solution is to secure the border with our military. If we do not stop the Guatemala poor at the western border, where do we? At the Natural Arch? At Caracol? At Augustine? At San Ignacio? A constant, daily presence all along a demarcated border by our military will significantly reduce the incursions, the stealing, the clearing, the appropriation of Belizean territory by Guatemala’s poor farmers.

And it does not have to break the bank, as the unpunished financial crimes of both our political parties have done. For example, a series of 8 outposts spaced about 10 miles apart covers the entire Chiquibul and Vaca forest borders with Guatemala. Man each outpost with an armed squad of 9 soldiers. Add armed squads of 9 moving between posts each day. An unarmed peasant population is no match for a rotating presence of 135 armed soldiers that patrol the border on a daily basis. Add in proper communications, proper equipment and training, utilize new electronic surveillance techniques, resupply the outposts by helicopter to keep the troops light and mobile and motivated …you get the idea. The BDF soldiers will have a sense of purpose, hone their jungle skills and we will have invested in the development and camaraderie of the young men and women of Belize.

We are, at this moment in our history as a country, dealing with an issue of national sovereignty. This is our generation’s Battle of St Georges Caye, our generation’s 1981 Independence movement. We can continue to hide behind our phones, our televisions and our complacency, as well as search the Internet for Spanish language schools in Guatemala (which returns 18 million results) because we may all soon be speaking Spanish.

Or we can take on the generational challenge before us, create a shared vision of an independent and sovereign nation, and back it up with action, not just words … protect the Chiquibul and secure our western border.

The riotous striving for sunlight of forest plants.

Our national sovereignty is the predominant issue for Belizeans at present; without secure borders we have no country. But future generations will also see it as moral and ethical issue, as a time that defined us as Belizeans. For you see, much of our Belizean landscape is still forest-covered. The forests are almost constantly bathed by either a warm tropical rain or a bright sun. In this ideal habitat, plants strive so riotously against each other to reach the sunlight, that they appear youthful, healthy, uncontrolled, and wild. It is in this wildness that our humility can be renewed, that our spirit can thrive like the plants, because besides the watersheds, besides the biodiversity, the lumber and forest products, the Chiquibul provides us, and the world, the opportunity to experience the disappearing environment we evolved in as humans — a real Garden of Eden.

FCD is not only protecting the Chiquibul and its natural wealth from destruction, they are protecting us from the death of the wilderness experience, protecting us from losing our way within this artificial world we have created of concrete and electronics. The very presence of the Chiquibul returns us to a world of wonder and a renewed humility of spirit, reminding us that Nature exists outside, but not separate from us. The Chiquibul provides a baseline, a perspective to know where we might go because we still have what we came from.

Storm clouds building over the Chiquibul

One of the first lessons the Chiquibul taught me was that the ease of the life we have built and grown accustomed to in Belize, separated and safe from nature, can never be taken for granted. We may wonder from afar, looking at Facebook photos and words, at what appears to be a vision of the original paradise — a realm of serene, fertile and beautiful Nature — but we also need to know the realness and fear of Nature’s cunning, it’s savagery, and it’s indifference. That is the world we all evolved in, that drives our behavior today. To be able to return to it at will is a privilege few countries have.