BELMOPAN, Belize – The Belize government has effectively dismissed a United States-based international mining company Vulcan Materials, plan to acquire lands here.
The company is acquiring several hundred acres of land on Coastal Road, near Gales Point Manatee, in White Ridge Farms.
Sustainable Development Minister, Orlando Habet, confirmed that the matter had been raised during the weekly Cabinet meeting and that senior officials within the John Briceño administration have taken a collective policy decision that no surface mining, including strip, open put, 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 investment, especially regarding the ecosystems within that area. We have the community from Gales Point Manatee villagers 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. Still, while we had our Cabinet meeting, the Cabinet decided as the executive arm of government that they will not be entertaining any development that has to do with any mining at this time,” he added.
Habet said that the Cabinet’s decision” really was that it would not support any project development in Gales Point Manatee that will involve any mining, given the fact that there is this compassionate 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 development,” he told television viewers.
Last month, Kenrick Williams, the chief executive officer of 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 significant 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.
“I can tell you that the position is that unequivocally that this may not be an investment that has the support of the government, so we will have to communicate to them the position as it relates to that investment,” said Williams.
Villagers have overwhelmingly rejected the company’s project proposal, fearing the irreversible environmental damage that preparatory work will bring. They believe, for example, that turning a hill into rocks and stones means explosives will have to be used to blast the mountain and kill and displace all the wildlife in the area.
Parliamentary representative for the area, Dolores Balderamos-Garcia, said together with Tourism Minister Anthony Mahler, they brought up the matter in Cabinet.
“As you know, Minister Mahler is very concerned about tourism throughout our country, even in the smallest communities, and so myself, well he brought it up and then also I took up the mantle if you could put it that way because our people of Gales Point have been saying to us that they do not want the kind of strip mining activity in their backyards as it were.
“And so, I am very pleased that Cabinet has taken this kind of policy decision because I believe I may have been the first one to bring it up in the House of Representatives, and I am thrilled as well that Minister Cordel [Hyde], responsible for mining, has joined in with us,” she added.
and then 
