Minister Meets SATIIM on Indigenous Consent and Projects

Minister of Indigenous Affairs, Dr. Louis Zabaneh, met with members of the Sarstoon Temash Institute for Indigenous Management (SATIIM) to discuss ongoing projects including one involving the Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC).  Love News spoke with Minister Zabaneh on the outcome of the meeting.

Dr. Louis Zabaneh, Minister of Indigenous Affairs: “We had a very good meeting just now with the executive director for SATIIM,  Ms. Maya Choc, and we discussed in particular the work that they’re doing via a project of the European Union for the FPIC protocols that are being used and these protocols are in place to ensure that you have free prior informed consent of the Maya communities in projects that are being developed within their areas. SATIIM is playing an important role in particular in developing training programs and in identifying gaps that still exist in relevant government ministries that are involved with the execution of these projects. So we were very pleased to discuss where SATIIM is at this time to ensure that we will continue to work closely with them to have these protocols in place and that we on the government side have a standardized approach when it comes to the FPIC operations across the district. Yes, we were grateful also for an explanation to us of the geographic area, the Sarstoon-Temash National Park area and the seven communities that SATIIM works with.  As you know, with the broader area, with respect to land tenure for the Maya people,  demarcation of villages is a central and was a sticking point that we are now working very closely with the communities for us to ensure that we have a methodology that represents something that will lead to sustainable demarcation of the various villages. So that is something that we were able to discuss and we learned quite a bit from them.”

Maya Choc, a representative of SATIIM told Love News that she is hopeful that the road ahead will be smooth and productive.

Maya Choc, SATIIM Representative: “We work with seven communities.  Six of which buffer the Sarstoon TemashNational Park. The discussion relates to not just, it’s not focused mostly on them but also looking outside of those communities. While we look at FPIC, FPIC is not particular to those communities but it also includes 41 Mayan communities in the south. And so it’s really building capacity, creating awareness, what it is, what it entails, what comes with this right. So those are some of the discussions that we had and we are looking at support from the ministry who have said they’ve supported the initiative. The project is going to build capacity in both government, the indigenous communities, and civil society on FPIC. You know what it is, what it entails, what are the procedures in it so that when projects that trigger an FPIC comes into the South they are aware of what needs to get done on both sides.”