November is Jaguar Month, a time to celebrate Belize’s majestic big cat while raising awareness about the challenges they face. As one of the most recognised symbols of the country’s biodiversity, jaguars are crucial to the health of Belize’s ecosystems. However, this month also highlights the growing need to address human-jaguar conflicts, especially in light of recent events.
A History of Conflict
Human-jaguar conflict is not new. Adult jaguars, particularly those that have lost their natural prey, are more likely to hunt livestock, leading to tensions between farmers and conservationists. Young jaguars, in contrast, rarely cause conflicts, as they are less experienced hunters and often stay within forested areas with ample food.
These interactions underscore the delicate balance between conserving this apex predator and addressing the concerns of communities whose livelihoods may be affected by jaguar predation.
New Pressures from Displacement
Recent flooding across Belize has added to the pressure on jaguar populations. Rising waters have displaced these big cats from their natural habitats, forcing them into areas closer to human settlements. This increases the likelihood of encounters and, consequently, conflicts. Jaguars, already skilled at adapting to various environments, may find temporary refuge in agricultural areas, heightening tensions.
Competition for Prey
Another key issue is the shared appetite for armadillos and gibnuts, species highly valued by both jaguars and humans. This overlap creates competition for resources, with humans hunting these animals for food while jaguars rely on them for survival. As human populations expand and hunting intensifies, jaguars may struggle to find enough prey, pushing them toward livestock or other less favourable food sources.
Why Jaguar Conservation Matters
Jaguars are more than just a cultural icon; they play a vital ecological role by regulating prey populations and maintaining balance within their habitats. Protecting jaguars ensures healthier ecosystems, which in turn supports agriculture, water resources, and tourism—pillars of Belize’s economy.
A Call to Action
Jaguar Month is an opportunity to promote coexistence strategies that address both conservation goals and human needs. Initiatives such as community education, better livestock management, and habitat restoration can help reduce conflicts. Additionally, efforts to monitor and protect displaced jaguars are e.
The Belize Defence Force (BDF) has announced the successful completion of the International Jungle Warfare Instructor’s Course (IJWIC) 2024, held from September 29 to November 15 at the Jungle Warfare School of Excellence, Guacamallo Camp in the Cayo District.
The intensive seven-week program trained participants to earn the title of Jungle Warfare Instructor (JWI), equipping them with the skills and knowledge necessary to plan, conduct, and provide training in jungle operations. This year, 21 candidates from an initial cohort of 46 successfully achieved the JWI qualification. Participants represented five countries: Belize, Jamaica, Guyana, Barbados, and Trinidad and Tobago.
According to the BDF, the curriculum included comprehensive instruction in jungle navigation, survival techniques, live-fire tactical training, jungle caching, patrolling, teaching practices, and the combat orders process. The course also emphasised offensive and defensive jungle warfare tactics, pushing candidates to prove their mental and physical resilience while mastering the skills required to live, fight, and survive in challenging jungle environments.
As newly qualified instructors, the graduates are now capable of training personnel in jungle operations, sharing expertise on tactics, techniques, and procedures essential for jungle combat.
The BDF also celebrated the top three achievers of the course:
1st Place: Corporal Sho Marvin, Gulf Company, Second Infantry Battalion.
2nd Place: Corporal Torres Karem, Force Headquarters.
3rd Place: Corporal Tzub Evander, Alpha Company, First Infantry Battalion.
The IJWIC remains a premier program for building tactical expertise and fostering collaboration among regional defence forces.
Archaeologists have discovered a 4,000-year-old network of canals in Belize, revealing an early system used to channel and catch freshwater fish like catfish. The findings, published in Science Advances, highlight the ingenuity of Maya predecessors long before the rise of their iconic civilisation.
Using drones and Google Earth imagery, researchers identified zigzagging canals stretching for miles through wetlands in the Crooked Tree Wildlife Sanctuary. The canals, paired with holding ponds, were likely used for fishing, aided by barbed spearpoints found nearby, said co-author Marieka Brouwer Burg of the University of Vermont.
The canals date back to a semi-nomadic period, predating the Maya by millennia, and were in use for about 1,000 years. This early large-scale landscape modification suggests a foundation for the complex society that later built temples, pyramids, and advanced systems of writing and astronomy.
“This shows continuity,” said Jeremy Sabloff, an archaeologist at the University of Pennsylvania, explaining how the resourceful strategies of these early communities likely supported the cultural and architectural achievements of the Maya.
These ancient canals not only sustained growing populations but also provided a deeper understanding of the region’s transition from semi-nomadic groups to permanent farming villages, paving the way for the Maya’s rise.
A week has passed, but the country is still reeling from the impact of Tropical Storm Lisa. The storm swept rapidly across Belize, but even before it made landfall, it unleashed heavy rains that caused rivers to overflow. Neighboring Honduras bore the brunt of the storm, recording forty inches of rain in just three days, while Guatemala also faced significant downpours. News Five has been tracking the floodwaters, starting in western Belize on Monday and now in Crooked Tree by week’s end. Yesterday, the road into the village became impassable, and today, the only way in or out is by boat. At least twelve families have had to evacuate as floodwaters continue to rise around the village. News Five’s Paul Lopez traveled there today and filed this report.
Paul Lopez
Paul Lopez, Reporting
I am currently standing at the entrance to Crooked Tree Village waiting for a boat to take us in. We got here and initially attempted to enter the village by way of a pickup truck. However, the road is impassable at this point in time by any sort of vehicle. This is the second day the roadway has been inundated by flood waters and this is the reality that residents now have to face to get to and from the community. Earlier today, a Belize Defense Force truck managed to navigate the flooded road into the village. However, when another truck arrived later with groceries for the residents, it didn’t dare attempt the same route. Sheril Adolphus took a boat from the village at dawn to run her breakfast restaurant in Sand Hill. We caught up with her as she waited for the midday boat to take her back home.
Sheril Adolphus
Sheril Adolphus, Resident, Crooked Tree
“Ih just punishing that you have to catch the boat off and on and then you have a lot of load. So, it is very stressful, it is very tiring, very uncomfortable. I mih the do a business in Sand Hill, do breakfast in the morning. But, I cannot cross the water everyday four o’clock to go and work.”
The grocery supplies that arrived today are very much needed, because the flooded roadway has prevented grocery store suppliers from entering the community.
Kenisha Garbutt
Kenisha Garbutt, Vice-Chair, RSMC NEMO
“Today we are out here to stock the shelter and give a predisposition into the community. We are heading into Rancho and Lemonal when we are done from here and then we are doing a quick stop in Boom just to ensure the shelters are stocked in the event that it needs to be opened.”
Paul Lopez
“Currently this is the only way in and out of Crooked Tree Village. Quite honestly it is a bit stressful in and out these boats. Earlier one Coast Guard boat came in to pick up passengers from a bus. But, the amount of residents that came on that boat required the Coast Guard to call for additional boats. Then, you have the supplies that must go in as well. So, this is what Crooked Tree residents are dealing with and perhaps for days if not weeks to come.”
A makeshift peer has been constructed at the village’s entrance for boats to dock. There, we met with the village Chairman, George Tillett. He shared with us how the floodwaters have affected his community.
George Tillett
George Tillett, Chairman, Crooked Tree
“We have been affected very rashly, because it has affected normal life, especially for the commuters, for students. We have something like eighty students who commute daily for high school and sixth form. Last night, the last boat came in somewhere like ten o’clock. Some of the students and workers got frustrated and they end up walking that one mile of water across the lagoon. I think I counted some twenty-three people that walked across the water last night, because they were there from around five o’clock in the evening. There was only one boat that can only take twenty people. And imagine there is a hundred and eighty people out there waiting with one boat that can only take twenty people with an interval of thirty minutes per trip.”
It’s not just commuters who are facing challenges. Fisherfolk can’t head out to work because of the floodwaters, leaving their boats docked. The Birds Eye View Resort is completely underwater, forcing the owners to evacuate their guests. According to Tillett, cattle farmers in the community are now required to travel three miles over water to get to their livestock. In the face of all these challenges, one teacher from Belize City is braving the floodwaters to educate children in the community.
Paul Lopez
“Why did you still decide to come to work today?
Vanessa Allen
Vanessa Allen, Teacher
“Well apart from it being my passion to teach. I want to still be here for my children. Well, it is my job. So, I find it very, it is not really challenging for me, because I need to be here for my kids I still make the effort to come.”
Paul Lopez
“Do you do it again all over on Monday?”
Vanessa Allen
“Well, on Monday if I have to, I will make it.”
Violet Moulten, a resident of Crooked Tree, has evacuated her home to seek shelter in a nearby church. She says this is the seventh time over the course of her life that she has had to leave her home due to flooding.
Violet Moulten
Violet Moulten, Resident, Crooked Tree
“All kinda trauma we guh through with this thing. The most thing dah the kids and the water. I have to lock up the house all the time because I don’t want them to go to the water.”
Paul Lopez
“Why haven’t you moved or relocated yourself and your family?”
Violet Moulten
“No way, I will never trade my place for nowhere, because I have been to America and I see nowhere like Crooked Tree.”
According to George Tillett, the Chairman of Crooked Tree Village, flooding has become a more frequent issue in the community. He recalls that when he was growing up, the lagoon would flood about once every ten years. Now, he’s noticed it overflowing every four to five years. Tillett has proposed a solution that some might find unconventional: building a spillway from the lagoon to the New River to help mitigate the flooding.
George Tillett
George Tillett, Chairman, Crooked Tree
“You ask about long term solution, well I have made a proposal to the government, because the Crooked Tree Lagoon is a basin for all the water coming up from Cayo, Guatemala, Benque and the solution is, we did a fly over in the peek of the flooding season one year ago and we found out that the New River is below us. It is only like two miles away from our water body. So, my solution to them is if they would dig a channel, like an overspill, probably about four feet deep, twenty feet wide, all the way to New River, then our land, our roads, wouldn’t be flooded, because whenever it reaches a certain level it would empty out into the New River, which will alleviate our flooding and pump fresh waters into the stagnant waters of New River.”
The theft and money laundering case against former Sports Council Senior Accountant Ivan Ayuso seems to be dragging on endlessly, with his sentencing and forfeiture hearing repeatedly adjourned. On September twenty-seventh, Ayuso pleaded guilty to one count of theft and three counts of money laundering for embezzling one point four million dollars from the government. He knows he’ll face at least five years for each count, and his house, which he shared with his wife Tanya Savery, is up for forfeiture to the Government of Belize. However, when Ayuso appeared before Justice Nigel Pilgrim this morning, the forfeiture process hit several snags. First, the Director of Public Prosecutions requested more time to respond to an application from Savery, who has now filed for divorce. The court granted this request, further delaying sentencing. Savery has also filed an application to protect her interest in the property from any forfeiture order, citing a court order that already establishes her and Ayuso’s interests under matrimonial proceedings. The DPP asked for an adjournment to apply to the Civil Court to vary the division of matrimonial assets order, but Savery’s attorney, Erin Quiros, objected, arguing that the Financial Intelligence Unit and the DPP were aware of the matrimonial proceedings and allowed them to proceed. The DPP then requested more time to respond to Savery’s affidavit, which Justice Pilgrim granted. All parties are to return to court on December thirteenth. Ayuso, usually described as jovial, was visibly agitated and frustrated by the delay in sentencing.
William ‘Danny’ Mason is serving a life sentence for the murder of Pastor Llewellyn Lucas. He’s also facing charges of kidnapping and blackmail, which ended in a mistrial. A retrial was ordered, but Mason found himself without legal representation and needed time to hire a new attorney. Earlier today, Mason appeared virtually before the High Court with his new lawyer, Trinidadian Peter Taylor, who is being assisted by Nehanda Samuel, Eustace Warner, and Jamie Hibberd. In the courtroom of Justice Nigel Pilgrim, a case management conference was scheduled for December thirteenth, 2024. Taylor explained that he had filed paperwork on November eighth but needed more time to gather all the witness statements and get further instructions from Mason. The crown plans to rely on four witnesses, including virtual complainants Lloyd Friessen and his wife, along with two others. Justice Pilgrim gave the defense until November twenty-ninth to file the necessary documents, with the DPP’s response due by December sixth. The retrial was set to be one of the first cases in the January 2025 session, but a date in early February was agreed upon. Taylor also requested permission to apply for bail on Mason’s behalf, despite the seemingly far-fetched nature of the request. He argued that Mason, who has been in custody since May sixteenth, 2016, and only brought before the High Court in July 2024, is not a flight risk given the circumstances.
Statistics reveal a troubling rise in domestic and gender-based violence cases over the past few years. Comparing 2022 to 2023, the Belize Police Department reported a five percent increase, with one thousand, two hundred and fifty cases in 2023 alone. Today kicks off Sixteen Days of Activism, featuring a series of special events aimed at combating gender-based violence. This year, the National Women’s Commission is determined to make a difference with the theme: ‘No Excuse for Violence Against Women and Girls.’ News Five’s Marion Ali has the story.
Marion Ali, Reporting
Everyone remembers the horrifying ordeal of a twenty-three-year-old pregnant woman from Belmopan who was held hostage for days and subjected to physical, sexual, and emotional abuse by her common-law husband and his family a few weeks ago. The vivid images of her wounds tell a harrowing story of what she endured. This week, we also heard about the terrifying experience of San Pedro resident Sabella Brakeman, allegedly at the hands of her estranged husband, Kenny Brakeman. These women’s stories painfully highlight what many others suffer at the hands of their partners or someone they know. And today, the launch of the Sixteen Days of Activism aims to inform victims like Sabella and the pregnant woman that they can access help before the situation reaches that stage. Often, the victim is a woman.
Thea Garcia-Ramirez
Thea Garcia-Ramirez, Chairperson, National Women’s Commission
“We are telling women, report, even if you choose then not to take it to court, not to have press charges, report it, report it, report it, so that we know what’s happening. Report it for future action, report it. to have it documented so that when you need to have a restraining order or you make up your mind that you need to have a restraining order, there is a clear history of abuse of violence, and you are able to get that quicker. Don’t sit at home and feel like this is normal. It helps us to know how many cases there are for resource allocation so that we can show the people that make policy, that assign budgets and resources, say, look at this, we need more social workers, we need more socio-economic help. Psychosocial help.”
Thea Garcia-Ramirez, Chair of the National Women’s Commission, pointed out that too often, the very cultures we celebrate also harbor elements of gender-based or domestic violence, and it all begins at home during childhood.
Thea Garcia-Ramirez
“If you don’t know how to knead, and if that tortilla does not come out round, or if that fry jack nuh puff, and dem beat you, well you’ll look for it because you need to know these things. And so, it’s kind of ingrained, and then when it happens to you, when you are an adult in a union or a marriage, then it – my grandma tell me this may not happen anyway. So, it sort of gets normalized.”
President of the Senate, Carolyn Trench-Sandiford, shared her personal experiences with gender-based violence from her childhood on Alexandria Street, where such violence was sadly seen as normal.
Carolyn Trench-Sandiford
Carolyn Trench-Sandiford, Resident, Belize City
“I could never forget my first experience. Now at the time it happened, you don’t know that what was happening was not right. But within our society, it was normal. Because we had a couple who the man, the husband, was an alcoholic. It was normal. At that time we didn’t know words like someone is an alcoholic and what flows from being an alcoholic. And whenever that person drank, everybody knows the wife may get into it. It was as simple as that. And you would hear the noise, you would hear the screams, and there were children in that environment as well. But you also heard it’s not your business, you’re not to get involved. When two head goh pahn pillow da night, dehn wa cuss you out. So you’re not to get involved and say anything about it.”
Many women find themselves in domestic situations where they’re expected to shoulder more of the workload just because of their gender. This, too, is a form of gender-based violence, as Ramirez pointed out.
Thea Garcia-Ramirez
“Women who work a regular eight to five job and have to come home and do unpaid work, work at home for at least five or six hours every day more unpaid and the man if she has a husband or a partner comes home does a regular eight to five but he go home tired and can watch TV and does nothing to help around the house and that is normalized and that is violence. That is economic violence, that you both work, your both live, come home and do your share as well. But that is also normalized because that’s not a woman’s job and that’s not a woman’s work. So if you have a separate job, earning money to help pay the bills, you still have to come home and do that, and we normalized that.”
The commission’s staff made a short presentation titled “No Excuse” that reflected a part of this year’s theme.
Thea Garcia-Ramirez
“He gets upset for no reason and slaps me in the head. He’s not himself. He had a bad day at work. He is not a hungry jerk. No excuse! Cooking in the kitchen, I’m behind just a bit late. When he came into the kitchen and stoned me with an dinner plate, he didn’t mean it, as the plate must have slipped, as he held it without a very tight grip.”
While the number of reported domestic and gender-based violence cases has risen at the Domestic Violence Unit and the Women’s Commission, this could be a sign that victims are finally heeding the advice to report these incidents. Today, the Chair of the National Women’s Commission suggested that the increase in reports might mean that victims and their families are now seeking help and involving the authorities, rather than suffering in silence.
Thea Garcia-Ramirez, Chair, National Women’s Commission
“We know that only about 40 percent of cases were being reported. So that means that the vast majority of cases of violence were not even reported. The uptick in cases being reported can actually mean that our job and our work is actually getting out there. It’s really functioning because we are telling women, report, even if you choose then not to take it to court, not to have press charges, report it.”
Jair Hernandez, a special education student at Mary Hill Roman Catholic School in Corozal, made Belize proud this week by bringing home not one, but three gold medals from the CODICADER Special Olympics in Panama. On Monday night, the streets of Corozal Town were lined with residents eager to welcome Jair back. Among them was Garcia-Ramirez, a political aspirant and long-time resident of Corozal, who has known Jair and his family for years. She shared that his success is a testament to his strict discipline and dedication.
Thea Garcia-Ramirez
Thea Garcia-Ramirez, P.U.P. Standard Bearer, Corozal Bay
“Jair’s father used to run with him every day for, for training from the village of Xaibe up to where the Philip Goldson Highway is just to train every day with him. They were super excited. We expected him to do well, and we are proud. Corozal is proud of Jair. Three gold medals. I think it’s important because I believe in an inclusive society. I believe wholeheartedly that these children need not only our love and support, but even more so because they are differently abled and being differently abled doesn’t mean that you can’t do things just to do it in a slightly different manner and you need maybe different kinds of support.”
