Maya Aboriginal Land and Resource Rights and the Conflict Over Logging in Southern Belize

Abstract

In the last several years, the government of Belize, through its\nMinistry of Natural Resources, has granted at least seventeen concessions\nfor logging on lands totaling approximately 480,000 acres in the Toledo\nDistrict, its most southern political subdivision. The rural parts of the\nToledo District that are affected by the concessions are inhabited primarily\nby Maya people, descendants of the Maya civilization that flourished\nthroughout substantial parts of Mexico and Central America hundreds of\nyears prior to European colonization in the Western Hemisphere. On\nNovember 29, 1996, Maya organizations initiated in the Supreme Court of\nBelize, the trial court of general jurisdiction, an action challenging the\ngranting of the logging concessions. In the lawsuit, the Maya assert rights\nover lands and resources that are included in the concessions and seek to\nhave the concessions enjoined and declared in violation of Maya rights.

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