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 Ministry of Natural Resources, has granted at least seventeen concessions for logging on lands totaling approximately 480,000 acres in the Toledo District, its most southern political subdivision. The rural parts of the Toledo District that are affected by the concessions are inhabited primarily by Maya people, descendants of the Maya civilization that flourished throughout substantial parts of Mexico and Central America hundreds of years prior to European colonization in the Western Hemisphere. On November 29, 1996, Maya organizations initiated in the Supreme Court of Belize, the trial court of general jurisdiction, an action challenging the granting of the logging concessions. In the lawsuit, the Maya assert rights over lands and resources that are included in the concessions and seek to have the concessions enjoined and declared in violation of Maya rights.