Email

Print

This week she tells us how the reefs are protected - not so much by humans as they are by special fish who scour the reef to keep it healthy - but those fish also need protection from lawmakers to do their work. Here's how it all comes together:..

Janelle Chanona Reporting
Belize's marine resources have traditionally been described with adjectives like "bountiful", "rich", and "abundant". But disturbingly, the descriptive words now being used are "scarce", "threatened" and "vulnerable".

In the beginning, fishers extracted everything from oysters to turtles to manatees from Belizean waters as commercial produce. When those product numbers dwindled, fishers turned to lobster, conch and snappers.

But once again, history is repeating itself.

So in the past people used to say, "well I used to go and fish and after half day come home with enough to feed my family, to sell at the market" and today that's different. Today they'll say I have to buy more fuel, I have to go further away and I will not bring the amount of marine products that I used to bring.

Desperate to support their families, fishers targeted species like the parrotfish. But the loss of the grazers, coupled with the effects of climate change, have had significant impact on the reef.

Janet Gibson, Wildlife Conservation Society
"Basically our reefs are shifting, instead of being mainly coral, they are shifting to become algal dominated reefs. So if you have, if you can improve the balance on the reef so that you've got these fish grazing, they are just like grazers, grazing and eating that algae, then you improve the chances that you'll get better coral recruitment and over time that you will get greater percentage of live coral cover."

Live coral cover is critical because it serves as habitat for those commercially important marine products. New laws now protect grazers but alarmingly, even as fish stock continues to decrease, the number of fishermen continues to rise.

Right now with open access fisheries, everybody can fish, anybody can apply for a license so you have large numbers of people going or chasing very few fish and if we continue at this rate, we'll definitely deplete our resources very very quickly.

Celia Mahung is Executive Director of the Toledo Institute for Development and the Environment, TIDE. The organization is co-manager of the Port Honduras Marine Reserve and the Paynes Creek National Park. Mahung says the types of fishing gear being used are also negatively affecting marine resources.

Celia Mahung
"Net fishing is still a problem, not only with our neighbouring fishers but even some Belizeans fishers believe that that's the only way that they can benefit from our marine resources.

I wouldn't say we have a large number of fishers using traps but we do have a few right now so there needs to be some regulation on fish nets, fish traps and fishing gears that are not user friendly."

While enforcement and monitoring efforts play important roles in striking a balance between protection of marine resources and supporting Belizean fishers, TIDE is taking the common sense approach.

Celia Mahung
"Some fishers would see us as just wanting to stop development and they don't really believe that we are looking after their interest as such so what we've been doing recently is to continually provide information and training to local fishers. Because we don't want to be type of the organization that will go to them to say do this, do that, do the other, I believe that people are intelligent enough to make decisions for themselves so we provide the atmosphere and the information and as a result of getting that information, they make decisions. "

Along with the empowerment sessions, TIDE, the Wildlife Conservation Society and other local environmental groups are also promoting ideas such as an increase in no-take zones from four to twenty percent and managed access to protected areas.

Janet Gibson
"In so many things in life, people will take the short term view rather than the long term view but in the end, we need to, we have to keep that long term view always up front and in the end, if we don't, if we don't take appropriate action now, my fear is that we won't have fisheries, you know, productive fisheries, in the next few years.

Fisheries around the world are in crisis for the same reason but I recognize that that leads to the other issue. Okay, it is a finite resource, it can only support a limited number of fishermen, what happens to the others, the other fishermen that are displaced?"

Environmental groups have been hard pressed to come up with alternatives to commercial fishing.

Celia Mahung
"Fly-fishing for example, tour guiding, life skills training and so on but we can never do enough. People will say you are taking away my livelihood what are you giving back to me and because we are the only organization, or one of few organizations, that people see, they expect us to offer all the opportunities and that's a big challenge for us."

Which is why TIDE and other organizations are asking both the public and policy makers to support the cause. One way is by simply visiting protected areas.

Celia Mahung
"Every single time we take kids or adults on a field trip, the response is so positive...They are like: "I neva know we have this...I neva know it was so beautiful...so I believe that as a nation we need to make give, every Belizean an opportunity to visit our national resources, our marine parks our national parks, all our protected areas and as a result of the visit, people will display a lot more appreciation for what we have and will want to protect it."

But one group is going even further than that.

Armeid Thompson, Healthy Reefs for Healthy People
"For us within Healthy Reefs, we have embarked on a noble initiative to actually try and train CEOs, Ministers of Government, Department heads, NGOs, in scuba diving.

It's with the idea to educate. You can't honestly make a tangible policy if you haven't ever seen what's there. You can see pictures out the wazoo or out the yahoo but you can't unless you get down there and you see."

Healthy Reefs hopes that the initiative will bring more dollars and sense to marine protection and sustainable development. So what can the rest of us do?

Janet Gibson
"We all have our part to play and in the end, you know, it's, even though it might just be a small action when you put it all together, it does have an impact."

Tune in next week Wednesday when we'll have another installment in the series…