Sarstoon Temash Institute for

Sarstoon Temash Institute for Indigenous Management

Annual Report 2006 Mission Statement: 2 Temash Lagoon

To safeguard the ecological integrity of the Sarstoon Temash Region and employ its resources in an environmentally sound manner for the economic, cultural and social welfare of its indigenous people. Contents Words from the Executive Director 4 What is SATIIM 5 3

Accomplishments 6 Biodiversity Conservation and Community Participatory Mapping Integrated Coastal Marine and Watershed Management/ Binational Activities Community management of Sarstoon Temash Coastal Marine Resources Sarstoon Temash Buffer Communities Environmental Education Oil Advocacy Satiim s assistance to Otoxha Financial Statement (2006) 12 SATIIM s Management & Staff 15 Gregory Choc Executive Director SATIIM Dear Friends I am pleased to present to you a synopsis of our work over the last year. 2006 has been a year of unprecedented growth filled with exciting, enriching, rewarding experiences yet challenging for our organization and our indigenous people. SATIIM has seen an increase in our staff from 5 to 11 full time and 5 part-time. With our cadre of young professionals and in partnership with our communities we have been busy tackling some of the intractable issues affecting protected area management and indigenous people. At the same time we put into motion our 4 administrative and financial policies to effectively manage our human and financial resources. While we successfully

used these systems during the implementation of the medium size grant from GEF through the World Bank, we had to restructure, streamline and make other operational improvements to keep cost in check and at the same time strengthen team spirit within our organization. SATIIM continue s the daunting task of concretizing our comprehensive management plan for the park. This involved additional fundraising for our park program that included infrastructure development, personnel recruitment, development of patrol and monitoring programs, research, strengthening traditional community governance structures and promoting and safeguarding our peoples livelihoods. This year was also challenging for SATIIM and by extension personally challenging for our staff as well. We objected to government permission to US Capital Energy, an oil company, to conduct oil exploration inside the Sarstoon Temash National Park. Government refusal to discuss and resolve our concerns, and those raised by our communities, forced us to seek redress before the Supreme Court of Belize. It was a long fought battle that we took to the Supreme Court and the court of public opinion. In the end, the rule of law prevailed. However, the real struggle has just started as human rights, benefits, safeguarding livelihoods, mitigating environmental contamination and discrimination that will directly affect our people, all need to be addressed. To our donors, colleagues and friends who supported us during these most difficult times, I extend, on behalf of our communities, board and staff, our most sincere thanks. We know that our work will have far reaching implications for protected areas management in Belize. With your continued support we will continue to lead the way forward creating new path where too many are afraid to go. I also give my many thanks to our communities, my board, volunteers and my staff for keeping our purpose in mind despite the confusion and the threat to our unity over the last year. Our work and our challenge to the oil industry have only strengthened our resolve. May the great Spirit be with all. Gregorio Choc Executive Director What is Satiim s Staff 5

SATIIM? The Sarstoon Temash Institute for Indigenous Management (SATIIM) is a community based indigenous environmental organization working in the far south of Belize, in a region in the Toledo District that lies between the Sarstoon and Temash Rivers. SATIIM co-manages, with the Belizean Forestry Department, the 42,000 acre Sarstoon Temash National Park (STNP). The national park was declared by government in 1994 on lands traditionally used by the Garifuna and Maya communities who live in the area. There was no community consultation process before the creation of the park. What is now SATIIM began in 1997 as the Sarstoon Temash National Park Steering Committee, which was formed after the communities around the park came together to stake a claim in the management of the land and natural resources in and around the park. Many villagers opposed the declaration of the park and viewed it as confiscation of their lands, but others saw the creation of the park as an opportunity for the indigenous communities to continue to safeguard and manage the area. Residents who saw this opportunity formed the steering committee and began a long process of discussion with their neighbours, slowly persuading people that the communities could benefit directly and indirectly from the national park if they organized and controlled its STNP Boundary Map produced@ Satiim management. Community Resource Maps produced @Satiim SATIIM s Board of Directors is made up of five elected community representatives, one from each of the buffer zone communities: Barranco, Midway, Sunday Wood, Conejo and Crique Sarco. In addition, representatives from the Q eqchi Council of Belize, the Toledo Alcaldes Association and the Garifuna National Council have seats on the Board, with representatives chosen and appointed by those organizations. The Forest Department represents the Belizean government on the Board of Directors. The elected Board members serve two year periods and are elected at the General Gatherings, an event held every two years with all interested community members. This general assembly also decides 6 overall

policy and the strategic direction of the organization. Accomplishments Biodiversity Conservation and Community Participatory Mapping Monitoring at Temash Sarstoon Temash Institute for Indigenous Management (SATIIM), with assistance from Conservation International (CI), has been building its in-house GIS capability during the past year. Development of this capacity has played an integral role in the management of the Sarstoon -Temash National Park (STNP), assisted in laying the foundation for community-based biodiversity conservation, land tenure security and participatory mapping of traditional indigenous lands. Boundary demarcation is an integral part of SATIIM s work with communities and it required several meetings and consultations with communities who share common boundaries. The issue of boundary demarcation can become Belize /Guatemala Delegation @St. Peter Claver Ext., PG sensitive at times as communities have been living on the land for several decades which may cause contention among themselves and neighbouring communities. This in turn may delay or halt the demarcation efforts. As a step towards supporting conflict resolution and consensus building between the communities, consultations were carried out in the communities. The meetings were for the communities to come together whereby they engaged in meaningful discussion in a n effort to agree on their boundaries. Resource use mapping Drumming in Barranco Even though boundary demarcation is a step towards securing land tenure which is a challenge for the indigenous people of Sarstoon Temash region, it is also important to map important, historical sites and extraction sites for better land use planning and management. The community mapping focused on the communities of Barranco, Midway, and Conejo and included compiling of data from reports done by consultants hired by SATIIM and overlaying, digitizing and geo -referencing of the data available. 7

Integrated Coastal Marine and Watershed Management/ Bi-National Activities With funding received from the British Embassy, the UNDP GEF/ SGP and Oak Foundation, several coastal marine & watershed management as well as bi-national activities with Guatemalan counterpart FUNDAECO was carried out. Bi-national mangrove and sedimentation monitoring SATIIM and FUNDAECO staff participated in a two day mangrove monitoring training on July 6 th & 7 th, 2006. The training covered basic Temash Monitoring station and dock information on mangroves and its monitoring, methodology and provided the participants with hands on experience. Sedimentation traps were also set at Temash river mouth and Sarstoon River mouth. These traps were checked on August 3 rd, 2006 and the sediment collected was analyzed. Besides these monitoring activities, baseline data on fish and shrimp were also collected as a bi-national activity. Punta Gorda Town Council Delegation to Livingston Guatemala On August 18 th SATIIM carried the Belizean public officials, including representatives from the Punta Gorda Town Council, the Fisheries Department, the Immigration and Customs Departments, the Police and the Belize Defense Forces, to Livingston Guatemala to meet with their counterparts for one day of discussions and planning on a variety of issues of interest to the two countries. Discussions were lengthy and productive, with a number of specific initiatives identified for follow up. A second event introduced Guatemalan officials to Punta Gorda, Belize. Specific actions were identified for a number of the issues, including the development of a funding project for the Punta Gorda Town Council to develop a recycling program, dates for joint sessions with Fisheries and forestry personnel meetings in Barra Sarstun, and dates for joint patrols for the Sarstoon River and Amatique Bay. Barra Sarstun School visit to Barranco and the STNP On October Confiscated lumber in the STNP 5 t h, FUNDAECO brought about 20 school children, parents and teachers from Barra Sarstun, (a Guatemalan community that borders the park) for their first visit to the nearby Sarstoon Temash National Park. The FUNDAECO boat was met by SATIIM staff at the mouth of the Temash River, w h e r e students were given a tour of the protected area and the shrimp conservation areas that b o t h communities have set aside for as b r e e d i n g grounds. After the tour, children were taken 8 to the

Barranco school, where they were treated with a Garifuna dance performance, lunch and a football match. Follow-up plans are to take the children from Barranco to Barra Sarstun and to tour the Rio Sarstun Multiple Use Area. STMMA Advisory Committee An advisory committee was established for the Sarstoon Temash Marine Management Area (STMMA). The committee comprises a total of 7 members: representatives from Barranco, Motherbush, Panti Beach, Temash, Sarstoon, Fisheries department and Rio Grande Fishing Cooperative. This committee was established to develop mechanisms to address overfishing and resolving conflicts as it pertains to the coastal marine environment in the STMMA. They have met several times over the course of the year to discuss and resolve issues. Community Management of Sarstoon Temash Coastal Marine Resources Field trip to Xunantunich Maya ruin Research, monitoring and visitation Infrastructure Through funding from the UNDP GEF/SGP a monitoring facility was constructed at the Temash Bar mouth. The station will facilitate and house researchers and staff in conducting research and monitoring within the STNP. With additional funding from the OAK Foundation, the construction of the dock facility at the Temash River Monitoring Station was completed on August 10, 2006. This added to the completion of basic research, monitoring and visitation infrastructure at the station. Education officer @ Midway Community Extraction Permitting System Satiim s Technical Coordinator and Park Manager met with the Forest Department in finalizing an E x t r a c t i o n Permitting system for STNP. Meetings were held in all communities buffering the park explaining the permitting procedure and informing them that the system will be managed by the village alcaldes in conjunction with the park rangers. Permits are submitted to the approval committee which meets monthly to review permits. Patrolling and law enforcement Throughout the course of the year, patrols were planned and conducted on a regular basis. Park patrols are conducted by rangers daily within the STNP and weekly on the demarcation line near the buffer zone communities. A total of five multiagency patrols (Satiim, Forestry, Fisheries and Police Departments and the Belize Defense Force) have been conducting patrols deeper within the park this year, along the Temash and Sarstoon Rivers and the many tributary creeks. These patrols led to the discovery of a major logging operation inside the park, leading to the confiscation of over 4,000 board feet of illegally logged Sustainable fishing workshop @Sarstoon mahogany in March 2006. Other patrols conducted led to another illegal logging operation on the Midway/ Conejo boundary where 1,296 board feet of Samwood was confiscated. 9

Advocacy The Oil Challenge: June 28, 2006 Public Forum on Oil Issues @ Parish Hall This year SATIIM responded to a major challenge - proposed oil exploration and development in the Sarstoon Temash National Park and surrounding communities. US Capital Energy (USCE), an American oil company, was given permission by the Belizean Forest Department in April to begin seismic testing in the National Park. Permission that SATIIM s Board and staff felt was illegal and unfair. In response, SATIIM mounted a multifaceted advocacy campaign that involved raising awareness of the oil exploration issue through public outreach and education, coalition building, legal action, policy research and analysis, mobilizing local supporters, lobbying Government ministers, generating international political, technical and financial support and preparing to monitor and mitigate activities in the STNP if oil exploration goes ahead. We began the campaign with ambitious objectives- to halt or mitigate the impacts of oil exploration in the STNP and to incorporate biodiversity conservation and indigenous community concerns into Belize s relevant policies and regulations. Thanks to funding from IUCN, the Summit Foundation, Green Grants, Conservation International and the Oak Foundation SATIIM has been able to carry out oil advocacy activities that support these objectives in a timely and effective way. Highlights from the Campaign: One of the highlights from this campaign was the legal case that SATIIM brought to the Supreme Court in May 2006. We challenged the legality of the permission that was granted to the oil company by the Forest Department and this resulted in an injunction on oil exploration in the Park until a judicial review was complete. On September 27, 2006 the judicial review found that the permission to enter the National Park was illegal because no Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) was done beforehand, therefore the permission was quashed and an EIA was required. However, this was only a partial victory for SATIIM as we had hoped the Supreme Court would have agreed that oil exploration activities are illegal within Belizean National Parks. SATIIM and other protected area managers in Belize have some work ahead of us if we are to keep oil prospectors out of the National Park system. In addition to legal action, we have implemented a number of awareness raising and public education activities including community meetings to communicate and consult with local villagers and village leaders, public forums to promote discussion and dialogue on the issue, a media tour that showed reporters the park and the local communities where the proposed oil exploration is to happen, and we also produced and disseminated a newsletter, email updates, newspaper articles and radio and TV interviews. We mobilized local supporters to Belize City and Belmopan to witness the Supreme Court case and participate in national press conferences. Since the campaign began SATIIM has received public support from some of our colleagues and interna- tional support through an online petition set up the EcoLogic Development Fund and an international letter writing campaign developed by Global Re- sponse. ELAW and Earthjustice have helped provide technical legal and advo- cacy training, while others have contributed time, energy, knowledge and resources to the campaign. David Itch, SATIIM s GIS Analyst demonstrates where the proposed seismic testing lines will go at a community meeting in Conejo village in June 2006. Greg Choc went to Ecuador for an Oilwatch conference in October 2006, where he visited the site of oil development in the Amazon Greg Choc, ED for SATIIM, speaks to local supporters outside the Supreme Court in Belize City on June 5, 2006., Greg Choc and Mrs. Antoinette Moore at supreme court( (above) 10

Satiim assistance to Otoxha Deer Dance and Koxtal Cultural Group Satiim through the CARD project conducted work with the Deer dance and Koxtal cultural group of Otoxha. As a part of the project, a marimba and 23 deer dance costumes were purchased and handed over to the Otoxha Deer Dance Group. Having the proper costumes, the group was able to perform the Deer Dance in Belize City on September 15, 2006 as part of the September celebrations. The Koxtal Cultural group were assisted with material for Koxtal training in the standardizing and diversification of Koxtal marketable products and were able to create a total of 111 koxtals (38 small, 38 medium and 35 large). The project assisted in strengthening the capacity of the Otoxha Deer Dance and Koxtal Cultural Group to deliver more effective services, respecting gender, ethnic diversity while incorporating indigenous knowledge. Marimba players and Deer dancers performing in Belize City, koxtals produces by the Otoxha Womens Group 11

Financial Statement (2006) STATEMENT OF INCOME AND EXPENSES YEAR ENDED DECEMBER 31, 2006 REVENUES Bi-National Work $ 116,417 Community Outreach 26,825 General Operations & Coastal Project 297,355 Advocacy & Policy 214,109 Community Development Projects 49,278 Education & Outreach 39,949 Other Income 6,488 Total Revenue: $ 750,421 LESS: EXPENDITURES: Programme Administration 207,559 Operational Expense 54,549 Consultancy 14,632 Bi-National Work 56,348 Community Outreach 40,619 Alternative Livelihood 930 Capital Expenditures ` 25,935 Advocacy Initiatives 178,810 Total Expenditures $ 579,382.00 NET INCOME $ 171,039 12

Revenue Collected in 2006 $300,000 $250,000 $200,000 Belize Dollars $150,000 $100,000 $50,000 $- Bi-National Work Community Outreach General Operations & Coastal Project Advocacy & Policy Community Development Projects Education & Outreach Other Income Revenue Distribution Education & Outreach 5% Other Income 1% Bi-National Work 16% Community Development Projects 7% Community Outreach 4% Advocacy & Policy 28% General Operations & Coastal Project 39% 13

Expenditures Advocacy Initiatives Programme Administration Capital Expenditures Alternative Livelihood Community Outreach Consultancy Operational Expense Bi-National Work 14

SATIIM s Management & Staff Board of Directors: Alvin Loredo Marcos Ico Chairman (Barranco) Representative (Midway) Alejandro Tush Representative (Sunday wood) Jose Coy Representative (Crique Sarco) Lorenzo Pop Representative (Toledo Alcaldes Assoc) Alfonso Makin Representative (Conejo Creek) Pedro Kuk Representative (Q eqchi Council of Belize) Wilbur Sabido Representative (Forestry Department) Marion Cayetano Representative (National Garifuna Council) Office Staff Gregorio Choc Executive Director David Duncan Jr. Office Administrator/ Finance Officer David Itch GIS-Database Analyst Field Staff Seleem Chan Park Manager Thomas Ishim Ranger (Midway) Enrique Makin Ranger (Conejo) Martin Tush Community Promoter (Sunday Wood) Lynette Gomez Technical Coordinator Peter Shol Education Officer Acela Cho Accounts Clerk/receptionist Anasario Cal Head Ranger (Crique Sarco) Egbert Valencio Ranger (Barranco) Beatrice Mariano Community Promoter (Barranco) Josaiah Bo Community Promoter (Crique Sarco) Louis Ishim Community Promoter (Midway) Volunteers Megan Bennett 15

Sarstoon Temash Institute for Indigenous Management 6 Pampana Street, Punta Gorda Town Toledo District, Belize, C.A. Phone: 501-722-0103 Fax: 501-722-0124 Email: satiim@btl.net Website: http://www.satiim.org.bz