This Land Is Your Land, This Land Is My Land.

In the small, coastal country of Belize, the place I call home, there is rampant deforestation affecting the rainforest on our border with Guatemala. It was a problem that went mostly unnoticed for years until surveys were conducted that revealed huge portions of our protected rainforests were being exploited by Guatemalan loggers. They cross the border illegally to harvest trees of all varieties for export to their countries. With the limited resources our country has for enforcing our borders, there is little hope of our Government putting a stop to this activity. To make things worse, Guatemala has had a long-standing claim on Belize as their territory and does not recognize Belize as a sovereign country. As a result, their cultural attitude towards Belize being their land will do little to stop them from exploiting our resources, because they believe it is theirs to exploit as they see fit. It is my hope that our beautiful rainforest won't have to pay the ultimate price for this trivial, unfounded political dispute.