Anything for Profit
In a world full of wrongdoing, Sharon Matola, a citizen of Belize who owns a zoo, fights to protect the well being of Belizean communities from destructive forces. In The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw, by Bruce Barcott, the small country of Belize faces environmental devastation due to the greed of companies and the government. In the early 1990s, the Belizean government and Belize Electricity Limited (BEL) proposed to build a controversial dam on the Macal River, to produce more energy in the country instead of buying from Mexico. The potential damage of the dam would be devastating to villagers utilizing the river, to animals living in the forest, and to the rest of the citizens that would be receiving the electricity. …show more content…
As a result of purchasing electricity from Mexico, BEL and the government decided to build a dam with the purpose of producing enough electricity that rates would lower, but further into the production of the dam “they admit the dam can’t make electricity costs go down”(Barcott 273). Still, they fail to tell the truth until during the construction of the dam when electricity rates raised 12 percent and water rates rose 13 percent. Another dam, the Mollejon dam, had a secret “take or pay” contract written by a powerful figure in Belize, Ralph Fonseca. The contract required that if the dam made less energy than it was intended, which it did, then ratepayers would have to pay $9.6 million a year, which means “Belizeans who earned less than $100 a week―paid more than $1 million for electricity that didn’t exist”(Barcott 156). Belizeans’ are losing money, while for years the companies behind the dams have been making money and the dams do not produce much energy. The ratepayers were unaware of the contract and continued to pay larger amounts of money for low amounts of electricity. Due to their desperation to have their own electricity, instead of Mexico’s, they allowed for the dam to be built and their money to be taken away. “‘It is hard to believe that Belize would sacrifice it's people's civil rights, and one of the most valuable wildlife areas in the world, for a small amount of overpriced electricity’, says Godsman Ellis, President of Belizean Institute of Environmental Law and
In a world full of wrongdoing, Sharon Matola, a citizen of Belize who owns a zoo, fights to protect the well being of Belizean communities from destructive forces. In The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw, by Bruce Barcott, the small country of Belize faces environmental devastation due to the greed of companies and the government. In the early 1990s, the Belizean government and Belize Electricity Limited (BEL) proposed to build a controversial dam on the Macal River, to produce more energy in the country instead of buying from Mexico. The potential damage of the dam would be devastating to villagers utilizing the river, to animals living in the forest, and to the rest of the citizens that would be receiving the electricity. …show more content…
As a result of purchasing electricity from Mexico, BEL and the government decided to build a dam with the purpose of producing enough electricity that rates would lower, but further into the production of the dam “they admit the dam can’t make electricity costs go down”(Barcott 273). Still, they fail to tell the truth until during the construction of the dam when electricity rates raised 12 percent and water rates rose 13 percent. Another dam, the Mollejon dam, had a secret “take or pay” contract written by a powerful figure in Belize, Ralph Fonseca. The contract required that if the dam made less energy than it was intended, which it did, then ratepayers would have to pay $9.6 million a year, which means “Belizeans who earned less than $100 a week―paid more than $1 million for electricity that didn’t exist”(Barcott 156). Belizeans’ are losing money, while for years the companies behind the dams have been making money and the dams do not produce much energy. The ratepayers were unaware of the contract and continued to pay larger amounts of money for low amounts of electricity. Due to their desperation to have their own electricity, instead of Mexico’s, they allowed for the dam to be built and their money to be taken away. “‘It is hard to believe that Belize would sacrifice it's people's civil rights, and one of the most valuable wildlife areas in the world, for a small amount of overpriced electricity’, says Godsman Ellis, President of Belizean Institute of Environmental Law and