Ari Hershowitz – Natural Resources Defence Council
October 19, 2000

Last week in Jordan, the jaguars and tapirs of Belize gained another powerful ally.

Fortis- a billion-dollar company with electric utilities in
Newfoundland, Ontario, and Prince Edward Island, as well as hotels in
Newfoundland and Nova Scotia-owns a controlling stake in Belize’s
national electricity utility, Belize Electricity Limited (BEL). BEL’s
proposed “Chalillo dam” would inundate nearly 1,000 acres of the remote
Macal River Valley which has remained virtually unchanged since the
decline of Maya civilization, hundreds of years ago.

Scientists and conservation groups in Belize have challenged BEL’s
plans, but their concerns are dismissed by the company, which has used
its government ties to try and quell opposition to the dam. In an
editorial which ran recently in the newspaper published by the ruling
political party, a government spokesman labeled opponents of the dam
“Enemies of the State”.

However, BEL and Fortis are finding the international opposition to
their plans harder to ignore or supress. Beginning earlier this year,
more than a dozen advocacy groups in Canada, the U.S., and Belize
organized letter-writing campaigns targeting Fortis, and Duke Energy, a
U.S. based company which could also benefit from the Chalillo dam
project. More than 18,000 letters, faxes and emails have been sent to
these companies protesting their plans to build the dam. Harrison Ford,
actor and dedicated conservationist, has also spoken out against
flooding the Macal River Valley. Ford learned firsthand of the natural
marvels of Belize when he was there for the filming of Mosquito Coast.

And last week in Jordan, the jaguars and tapirs of Belize gained
another powerful ally. Thousands of delegates to the World Conservation
Congress, of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature
approved a motion for the Protection of the Macal River Valley. “The
dam threatens one of our planet’s most precious natural treasures,”
said Jacob Scherr, of the Natural Resources Defense Council, one of the
sponsors of the motion. “Belize may be a small country, but the
international community will hold Fortis and its partners accountable
for what they do there.”

The Canadian International Development Agency is also being questioned
for its role in the dam project. Fortis obtained funding from CIDA for
studies to support the dam proposal, but neither Fortis, nor CIDA have
released details of this arrangement. Scientists in Belize are
concerned that these studies will ignore years of research showing the
importance of the Macal River Valley for endangered species. “There is
more than enough evidence to show that the dam should not be built,”
says Sharon Matola, a biologist who has studied endangered parrots in
the Macal River Valley for nearly a decade. “With funding from Canadian
taxpayers, Fortis is trying to sweep the evidence under the rug in an
attempt to promote the dam.”
[link to Natural Resources Defence Council]