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Sharon Ramclam, Executive Director PACT
"It receives numerous proposals throughout the year, what we did earlier this year the PACT board and management and staff decided to prioritize and we talked to key stakeholders, we looked at what were the urgent priorities for the country and we decided on investing in national level initiatives. We worked - with the exception of the government of Belize through the RESTORE Belize initiative - we've worked with the Belize Fishermen Cooperation before, in fact they actually introduced their strategic plan today, we actually helped pay for that and funded the development of that strategic plan. And then for Chiquibul and Bladen we've traditionally been a local supporter of those two areas and so with the RESTORE Belize it's the first time we are partnering with the government in this way. But with our other partners we traditionally work with them to invest in grants."

Marydelene Vasquez, RESTORE Belize
"RESTORE Belize receives $100,000.00 from PACT today. This money is primarily an education grant. We will be using $70,000.00 for scholarship assistance to secondary school students, we will be focusing on students who should be in high school but have not had the financial resources to make it in so that will be our target population. We will be using $15,000.00 of the money to get trips to protected areas for upper primary school and high school, so we will be getting some of the city children out into the protected areas so that they can understand more about Belize outside the city. I think that lot of the children do not get an opportunity to see outside the city so that's $15,000.00. Another $15,000.00 will be used to have children do environment projects at school. The environment projects will be focussed on the urban environment, on urban environmental problems such as pollution and solid waste management and it will also focus on protected areas and the ecology of Belize."

Lisel Alamilla, Ya'axche Conversation Trust
"It really is continuing to support the work that we are already doing in the Bladen Nature Reserve. Continuing to do our patrols and maintain our monitoring program."

Andrea Polanco
"So I believe Ya'axche has had a long standing kind of battle with the government. Do you think that this grant is some kind of measure to show that they are trying to sweeten you guys up."

Lisel Alamilla, Ya'axche Conversation Trust
"No, I don't think so. $50,000.00 is not enough to sweeten us up. Yes, we went to court to present and to listen to the position of the defendants and the Attorney General's office asked for more time for them to make a submission because at the point of that hearing, they hadn't submitted their submission. So from what I understand is that they will have some time to prepare that and then our attorney will have two weeks to respond to it."

PACT serves as a key partner in financing biodiversity conservation with clear and tangible benefits to the natural heritage, economy and people of Belize. The investments today bring PACT'S total investment since January of this year to 1,021,648.71.