The 66 foot beach reserve that should be preserved in every coastal community is very much an issue in what might be called "dynamic ferment". It is enshrined in law - but on the ground, it's another story. In island communities where beach frontage fetches super prime real estate value - the issue is very contentious - and without authority, or on dubious authority many landowners fence in the reserve. The thing is, every square foot of beach frontage is worth many thousands of dollars - and every foot that can be claimed - exponentially increases a property's value.

Well, the Caye Caulker village council says "no mas". They had a showdown yesterday with one well known beachfront property owner, Wendy Auxilou. It was caught on camera and we spoke to the chairlady about it today via zoom:

"Move it from deh main and rip it down caz this da street"

Seleny Villanueva - Pott, Caye Caulker Chairlady
"Well, it was a trigger yesterday because, like I explained, that barrier was not there and it was placed back yesterday. So it was removed earlier in the year and it was left open. And now it's it was put back And the minute it was put back, the villagers, the community members started to call different council members and said, are we going to allow this is this what we want?"

"It was open and free. And I believe that even community members are fed up of not having access to what is theirs. That's an easy access way from the from to on from the water taxies. Everybody uses it as a, you know, passageway to access the water taxies quicker."

"So we we believe that we should have access the community should have access to it. And that's simply what the bulldozer was doing, removing removing the barricades. This is a beach access. This is street. So we want to open it up to have the golf carts pass, so people can so they removed one one of the middle piece out of it. Miss Auxilou claimed that she was out in exile."

"And then she came back on the island. And when she came back, she came back in full force. She decided that she was going to block again the area. There are many areas on the island of Caye Caulker where you feel like there is no longer any beach. And the community has been behind us to do something about these areas because they want their beach, they want their when they go for a night stroll, they want to be able to go down the beach and feel that, you know, they will not be threatened by anyone."

"And where there's a street, you can't own a street. If we sit down and watch, we will be taken over and, you know, the island has been pressuring on numerous occasions to to claim what is rightfully for for the people of Caye Caulker. If we don't do anything to protect it, we will we will lose it. And we are slowly losing it."

"And I believe the incident of of putting up the barrier just triggered triggered the council yesterday and we really, really have been tired of it because there are days when we feel that we're making one step forward, two step backwards, and we really want the government to assist us in addressing these issues."

We got a comment from Wendy Auxillou via text this evening and she said, quote, "election silly season is in full swing… When I left the country 1.5 years ago there were bollards at the perimeter of my mother's property boundary designed to prevent golf carts from using the beach as a raceway, but which in no way prevented the free flow of pedestrians or bicyclists. They were there for many years until they were removed by the Chairlady while I was away. Yesterday I was putting them back when the Chairlady and her entourage came with cameras in hand….It's victimization and nothing but a witch-hunt for election soundbites." End quote.

But, the Chairaldy says they are fighting a bigger struggle to maintain control of their community's precious and finite land resource:

Seleny Villanueva - Pott, Caye Caulker Chairlady
"We've had a relationship with natural resources where they sent out a team and they did several evaluations going from where we had the fire all the way up to the split and they conducted several investigations where they pointed out several encroachment. And we have dialoged with some of these people. We have sent letters to them. We've asked them, please cooperate with us."

"This is where your peg mark is. Please bring down your fence and allow us to have access to what is ours and to no avail, to no avail. There is so much going on right now in terms of beach reclamation. We understand that there's a big project about to start with maybe 120 feet of reclamation on the west side."

"These things we're not even aware of. So this for us is just the beginning of what we want to, you know, make the nation aware of. There are several things that when we ask natural resources about they have no knowledge of it, that's what we're told. We don't know how reliable that is but we see things happening on ground."

"We just want to ensure that we have a say or we are aware of what is being done."

We'll keep following the story