Contributing Writers: Azad Ali, Tangerine Clarke,
George Alleyne, Nelson King,
Vinette K. Pryce, Bert Wilkinson
GENERAL INFORMATION (718) 260-2500
Caribbean L 10 ife, November 8-14, 2019 BQ
By Farhana Haque
Rahman
Farhana Haque Rahman
is Senior Vice President of
IPS Inter Press Service; a
journalist and communications
expert, she is a former
senior official of the United
Nations Food and Agriculture
Organization and the
International Fund for Agricultural
Development.
ROME, Oct 31 2019 (IPS) -
Barely a week passes without
alarming news of the most
recent scientific research
into the global climate crisis
compounding a growing
sense of urgency, particularly
the impact on small island
states from rising sea levels
and extreme weather.
Latest findings suggest
that several hundred million
more people than previously
thought are at risk of coastal
flooding due to climate
change. Climate Central, a
non-profit research and news
organisation, found data
used in past calculations
overstated the elevation of
many low-lying coastal communities.
And for the people of
the Bahamas who had just
endured Hurricane Dorian,
the most intense tropical
cyclone on record to hit their
islands, it came as little surprise
when the UN Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) soon after
released its landmark special
report on the planet’s oceans
and frozen regions, warning
of “multiple climate-related
hazards” for coastal regions.
“The ocean is warmer,
more acidic and less productive,”
the IPCC report
stated.
Oceans are absorbing
heat twice as fast as just two
decades ago, with hundreds
of billions of tonnes of melting
ice raising sea levels at
an average rate of 3.6 millimetres
a year, more than
twice as fast as during the
last century.
If greenhouse gas emissions
“continue to increase
strongly”, the IPCC report
said, then levels could rise
more than a metre by 2100.
Some island states in the
Pacific face becoming uninhabitable.
As UN Secretary-
General Antonio Guterres
noted while visiting Tuvalu,
the sea level rise in some
Pacific countries is four
times greater than the world
average, posing “an existential
threat” to several island
states.
Against this background
the UN COP25 climate
change summit scheduled
to be held in Santiago in
December had been dubbed
the Blue COP, with expectations
of a focus on the
oceans and commitments of
aid to poorer nations most
at risk. So it comes as a
serious blow that President
Sebastian Pinera has just
announced that Chile is calling
off its hosting of COP25
because of mass anti-government
protests rocking
the country.
While the UN anxiously
looks for an alternative
venue (and Santiago had
been the second choice after
Brazil’s newly elected president,
Jair Bolsonaro, pulled
out of hosting it), the small
island states of the Pacific
will be making their voices
heard as they seek to confirm
themselves in the role
of custodians of the world’s
largest region.
It is an existential struggle
but it is not a blame
game however.
As Micronesia’s President
David Panuelo declared
last week in The Diplomat:
“Rather than point fingers,
we must all point the way
toward solutions.”
“No single country created
this problem, and certainly
a small country like
ours is bearing far greater
responsibility for the solution
than we ever contributed
to the crisis in the first
place. But we sit shoulder to
shoulder in a coalition which
has set a goal of growing
economies while achieving
By Wellington C. Ramos
Belize is a country with a
population of about 400,000
people. It is underpopulated
and there is enough land in
the 8,867 square miles, to give
each Belizean a lot to build a
home for his family and himself.
Plus, almost every Belizean
family own farmland which can
be subdivided to give all their
members a lot to build a house
for themselves.
Yet, there are hundreds of
Belizeans at home and abroad,
who are yearning to get a piece
of lot to build their homes
but cannot get a lot to do so.
The reasons are; a selfish family
member who has the title
for the family land and refuse
to share it with other family
members who are entitled to
some of it, a family member
who sold the family’s titled land
without the written consent
and approval of all the family
members, a family member
who had or have access to
a government leased property
that was given to their parents
and sold the lease, a family
member who acquired the lease
and purchased the land for his
or herself, the failure of government
to issue ongoing leases
to citizens regularly, the long
waiting period for the government
of Belize to issue Certificate
of Titles to people after
they discontinued Fiat Titles,
some government employees
deliberately replacing the owners
of leased properties without
granting the current Lease
Holder prior notice, no new
land designated by the government
in the districts for lease
distribution and the refusal of
Land Department employees to
process citizens documents in a
timely manner.
Years ago in order for
Belizeans to get a lot or a piece
of land, the PUP and UDP had a
Lots Committee in each district
to implement the entire process.
Under that system, most people
got land when their party was
in power. If their party was
not in power, their applications
never got processed while they
were told by the local offices
that their applications were
sent to Belmopan. That system
was hated by most Belizeans
and the UDP and PUP promised
to come up with a more fair
and transparent process which
never came to reality.
The UDP and PUP still want
the area representative to sign
off on the land applications
where the lot or land is located
but if that representative’s party
is not in power his or her signature
has no value. Also, if
the representative do not like
a person or think that he or
she did not vote for him or her,
they will not get the representative
to sign their application.
This is what many Belizeans
OP-EDS
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Continued on Page 11
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Red alert for blue planet
and Small Island States
Belizeans now need to
demand lots and land
distribution with a titled
expedited process
The Pacifi c island is one of the countries worst affected
by sea-level rise. UNICEF
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