Northern Belize
More actions
| Northern Belize | |
|---|---|
| ActiveGrown here in 2000 or later | |
| |
| The New River near its mouth, in Corozal District, January 2011 | |
| Geography | |
| Country | Belize |
| Province/State | Orange Walk District, Corozal District |
| Coordinates | 17.8968, -88.6799 |
| Landscape | |
| Area | 6,400 km² |
| Terrain | The lowlands of northern Belize between the Rio Hondo on the Mexican border and the coast of Corozal Bay and Chetumal Bay, crossed by the New River; approximately the districts of Orange Walk and Corozal; the map line's outer edge leaves out the open water of the two bays |
| Growing history | |
| Documentation | |
| Appellations | 0 |
| Accessions | 0 |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
Northern Belize is a cannabis growing area in the Orange Walk and Corozal districts of Belize, on the border with Mexico. In October 1985 the government sprayed "the primary growing areas in northern Belize" with glyphosate, and in 1989 the United States Department of State found the country's cannabis grown mainly in the north and north-west.[1]: 48[2]: 163 The Drug Enforcement Administration wrote in 2000 and 2001 that cannabis fields had been found mainly in Orange Walk District.[3][4] For 2005–2006 Belize named the north its most cultivated area, ahead of Toledo in the south.[5]: 11 From 2012 to 2021 the press reported fields destroyed near Blue Creek, Neuland, Santa Martha and the Freshwater Creek reserve in Orange Walk, and near Little Belize, Consejo, Carolina and Corozal Town in Corozal.
Spraying in the north, 1983–1989
The first aerial spraying, with paraquat in October 1983, covered Orange Walk and Corozal along with the Cayo and Toledo districts. The herbicide was stored in the town of Orange Walk, and more than 300 soldiers of the Belize Defence Force were sent to the villages of Orange Walk District after a British reconnaissance helicopter was shot at.[6]: 35 The glyphosate spraying that began on 28 October 1985 was flown over several areas of northern Belize and lasted four and a half days.[1]: 48 By 1989, after regular spraying with United States support, the State Department found cultivation centred in the northern and north-western parts of the country, with little left in the centre and south, where bananas and citrus had been developed for export. Cannabis was now grown on plots of under an acre (0.4 hectares) in remote places, increasingly in the north and west, and most crops appeared to be planted by landless farmers on consignment for the traffickers who paid for the planting.[2]: 163, 165
Orange Walk District, 1995–2006
In its brief of March 2000 the Drug Enforcement Administration wrote that fields of 500 to several thousand plants had been detected mainly in Orange Walk District. The government then neither sprayed nor allowed spraying: the police and the Defence Force found the fields from the air and pulled them up by hand. In the agency's account the growers of Belize planted in remote places, usually far from their homes, and left the plants until harvest, so that few were arrested; soldiers took a day on foot to reach a field once a flight had spotted one. To hide young plants from the air the growers set them among corn, or cleared the small trees and bushes of a patch and left the tall trees standing over the plants.[3] According to the agency's profile of May 2001, cultivation had traditionally been found mainly in Orange Walk District, in the north, and the Defence Force was now also finding many small plantings along the whole border with Guatemala.[4]
Reporting to the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission for 2005–2006, Belize named "the Northern District" its most cultivated area, followed by Toledo, and reported a decline in Belize District. From January to September 2006 eradication destroyed 53,000 plants in Orange Walk District and 50,000 in Toledo District.[5]: 11
Fields reported since 2012
In January 2012 the Defence Force and the police destroyed plantations at Blue Creek, Honey Camp, Chiwa Camp and Little Belize in the north, in an operation that also cleared fields behind San Pedro Columbia in the south; across north and south the operation burned 35,707 mature plants in 24 plantations and made no arrests.[7] In Orange Walk District, Breaking Belize News reported a plot of 75 by 75 feet (23 by 23 metres) with over 350 plants at mile 54 of the old Northern Highway, on the Santa Martha road outside Orange Walk Town, in September 2015, and about 3,000 plants at Blue Creek village in February 2018.[8][9] In October 2018 the police found a thatched house in the forest about five miles (8 kilometres) south-west of the village the paper spelled Nueland, with 200 dried plants, 1,322 grams of marijuana and 1,002 grams of seed under the house and 50 growing plants nearby. In January 2019 they burned some 500 mature plants in two small plantations about three miles north-west of what the paper called the Neuland Mennonite Community.[10][11] In July 2021 a joint operation destroyed some 2,500 plants in the Freshwater Creek reserve and about 1,000, most of them already harvested, south-west of Santa Martha village.[12]
In Corozal District the police destroyed a field of 2,500 plants in the Santa Rita area in July 2015, and about 600 mature plants and 600 seedlings in overgrown ground half a mile north-west of Dominguez Layout, in Corozal Town, in November 2016.[13][14] In March 2019 the Defence Force found 4,500 plants and 30 pounds (14 kilograms) of harvested marijuana in the Little Belize area.[15] At Consejo the police destroyed 289 plants at mile 1 of the Consejo road in August 2019, and in January 2021 a joint operation found two fields of over 2,500 and over 3,240 plants there, with sheds beside them.[16][17] Sixty plants were destroyed about two miles from Carolina in June 2021.[18]
Plants and growing methods
The plants in the fields reported from 2015 to 2021 ranged from eight inches (20 centimetres) to seven feet (2.1 metres) in height, and the dried plants found near Neuland in 2018 measured five to seven feet.[14][12][10] At Dominguez Layout in 2016 the police also found cannabis harvested and put to dry, and a white sack holding 6,464 grams of cannabis and the 600 seedlings.[14] At Consejo in 2021 one shed was used to process the crop into sacks for drying, and just over 11 pounds (5 kilograms) of processed marijuana was found; the second field there held young plants one to two feet tall.[17] The plot on the Santa Martha road in 2015 and the field in the Freshwater Creek reserve in 2021 each measured 75 by 75 feet; the two plantations near Neuland in 2019 measured about 15 by 15 metres.[8][11][12]
Accessions
No accessions documented yet.
Recent news
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Bureau of International Narcotics Matters (1 February 1986). International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (PDF) (Report). Vol. I. United States Department of State. Retrieved 30 October 2026 – via National Criminal Justice Reference Service.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Bureau of International Narcotics Matters (March 1990). International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (PDF) (Report). United States Department of State. Retrieved 30 October 2026 – via National Criminal Justice Reference Service.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Drug Enforcement Administration (March 2000). Country brief: Belize (Report). Drug Intelligence Brief. United States Department of Justice. DEA-20006. Retrieved 31 October 2026 – via National Archives web harvest.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Drug Enforcement Administration (May 2001). Belize: country profile (Report). Drug Intelligence Brief. United States Department of Justice. DEA-01010. Retrieved 31 October 2026 – via National Archives web harvest.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission, Multilateral Evaluation Mechanism Governmental Expert Group. Belize: evaluation of progress in drug control 2005–2006 (Report). Washington, D.C.: Organization of American States. OEA/Ser.L/XIV.6.2, MEM/INF.2006 Add.5. Retrieved 30 October 2026.
- ↑ Joint Publications Research Service (2 December 1983). Government steps up war on drugs, meets criticism of tactics. Latin America Report (Report). Foreign Broadcast Information Service. pp. 34–36. JPRS 84872 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ "Joint operation impacts the Belize drug trade". Amandala. Belize City. 11 October 2013. Retrieved 30 October 2026.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 "Police burn marijuana plantation". Breaking Belize News. 17 September 2015. Retrieved 31 October 2026.
- ↑ "Police find ganja farm in Blue Creek, Orange Walk". Breaking Belize News. 3 February 2018. Retrieved 31 October 2026.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 "Police find marijuana plantation in Orange Walk". Breaking Belize News. 28 October 2018. Retrieved 31 October 2026.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 "Police burn marijuana cultivation in Mennonite community". Breaking Belize News. 4 January 2019. Retrieved 31 October 2026.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 "Police find and burn marijuana plantations, thousands of plants destroyed". Breaking Belize News. 20 July 2021. Retrieved 31 October 2026.
- ↑ "Progresso men picked up for marijuana plantation and firearms". Breaking Belize News. 30 July 2015. Retrieved 31 October 2026.
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 "Police find marijuana plantation in Corozal". Breaking Belize News. 25 November 2016. Retrieved 31 October 2026.
- ↑ "BDF destroy marijuana plantation in Little Belize, Corozal". Breaking Belize News. 12 March 2019. Retrieved 31 October 2026.
- ↑ "Police destroy marijuana plantation in Corozal". Breaking Belize News. 23 August 2019. Retrieved 31 October 2026.
- ↑ 17.0 17.1 "Authorities find large marijuana plantation in Consejo, Corozal". Breaking Belize News. 21 January 2021. Retrieved 31 October 2026.
- ↑ "Police find marijuana plantation in Corozal". Breaking Belize News. 3 June 2021. Retrieved 31 October 2026.