Robert Lopez Claims Land Is at Risk of De-reservation  

Hummingbird Group Limited, a Belmopan-based furniture manufacturing business, is speaking out against what they claim is a violation of its long-term sustainable forestry license. Founder and C.E.O., Robert Lopez stated that the company obtained a logging license in 2022. Lopez said that the company endeavored to hire a consultant to ensure that the logging was in alignment with the regulations of the Forestry Department’s conditions of the license. However, according to Lopez, his team was met by a group of men drawing survey lines. Lopez said that the land is at risk of being de-reserved and demands that the matter be addressed promptly. Here’s what he had to say on the matter.

 

Robert Lopez, CEO, Hummingbird Group Ltd.

 “And so we just cut our first tree on March twentieth of this year, about a month ago.  Now that we’re in the reserve, putting in our roads, and everything is monitored by the Forestry Department, they’re very strict with these long-term sustainable forestry licenses. We come upon, about a week ago, a group of men in the reserve cutting survey lines. And immediately, we call the Forestry Department, but our crew had an encounter with them. And they’re saying that they have met, and I have a recording and I will send it to you, because they specifically said, Minister Cordell Hyde, we met with him in 2022, January of 2022. And he has given us permission, they call themselves Green Hill Farming Cooperative, something to that effect. I got a call this morning that they’re in there again, and word is that Minister Mike Espat, has told them to go in and cut and that he will see to it that it gets de-reserved.” “So it was de reserved I think the last time in 2017 or 2016 for farmland. And so, everything was parceled out in thirty-acre parcels and given out to farms. I’ll tell you, most of the people sold their land for a pittance. Three hundred, five hundred for a thirty-acre parcel. Of course, you’re just buying a lease document. And then people get it transferred and purchased price and then you get title. But up to two weeks ago, I was offered thirty acres right in front of where we’re logging. From the de-reservation, and the guy wanted twenty thousand. I told him I’m not interested. He called back the following week and said, I’ll take fifteen thousand. So this is the record of these people that get land for farming. And I’m not afraid to say, most of them were Belizeans that got this, and they’ve sold it to aliens. Most of it is Honduran, Guatemalan, and other foreigners that own these lands. And some of them are major landholders that bought up ten, fifteen, twenty of these parcels and now have huge cattle ranches. In what was once the reserve. So is that what they want to do again? Give out another thousand acres and split it up? When are we gonna learn to preserve what we have? What we have is long term sustainable license.”