After crossing the Boca del Rio Bridge in San Pedro and heading into Northern Ambergris Caye, instead of a slice of pure paradise, you'll notice large dumping areas near the road filled with trash, construction materials,sargassum, and other waste.

It's along the same road both locals and tourists use to traverse the area—it takes you past restaurants and bars and ultimately to Secret Beach.

After trying to get help from the Town Council and writing to the Area Representative, the Ambergris Northern Association held a press conference today to air their concerns. They say the island is not prepared for the tourism high season, and they request an urgent meeting with the Area Representative and the Mayor.

Courtney Menzies was on the island today and has this story:

The Ambergris North Alliance—a group of residents in northern Ambergris Caye—is sounding the alarm ahead of the tourism high season. The group says that as one of the premier tourist destinations in the country, they are not ready for the opening of the season.

And they say one of the reasons for this is because the garbage, construction waste, and sargassum are out of control. The President explained that they have tried to reach out to authorities since the town borders have expanded to include them. But up until now, they have received no plans.

Catherine Paz, President, ANA
"It took three deliveries of our letter and issuing a press statement, but this week our Mayor answered. The other recipients have not as yet. We are still waiting for that meeting with our Town Council and with the other ministries that need to come together—Tourism and Environment among them. We are still waiting for a plan with dates for regular trash collection, removal of dumpsites, regular litter pick-up in the north, and timely enforcement of our own laws. We all want to see visible change."

"Our government talks about big plans for the future: moving our airport and even building a bridge through Bacalar Chico National Park to Mexico. But we need to focus on now. The high season is almost here, and this season we are not ready. Our roads need work, our island needs to be cleaned up, so today our message is simple: start with the basics—basic services, basic infrastructure—and start with the people who live here."

ANA was also joined by ACES and BTIA, who elaborated on how the waste in Northern Ambergris affects not only tourism, but animals as well.

Matt Barnes, ACES Wildlife Rescue
"Most of the people here are more concerned about the economic impacts of the trash on the island and in the water. I'm trying to give more of a holistic approach, bit more inclusive, and speak out for the animals and the environment."

"In my opinion, it's reaching really serious levels here on the island in terms of the impacts it's facing. There's three main ways the litter affects marine and terrestrial animals here on the island."

"Entanglements are... are a very provocative issue. It's the way we try and grasp people and literally kick them on the backsides and get them to think about the impacts they're having on the environment."

"Ingestion is a silent killer. The outside of the animal can look okay, and it's not until we look inside the animal we can see why it might have died. Here you can see an egret on this island—it ingested a hook and we needed digital imagery to see what's happening inside the animal."

"Lastly, the habitat loss. The habitat is exceptionally important. If you're a turtle emerging, your access to the shore to be able to lay your eggs is compromised by sargassum, but also bands of litter. You're losing space.This is space that should be allowed for foraging, for nesting, for mating, for breeding, and all this space is lost for animals."

Melanie Paz, BTIA San Pedro
"Waste management has always been a tremendous problem on the island—not only for North Ambergris Caye, but also for the town and other parts of the island. BTIA has in the past initiated clean-up campaigns just to do all the hard work, and the dumping situation goes back to the same thing. So what I really want to know is ask our community: where is our civic pride? Because we live in a community that we depend on tourism, and if we don't take responsibility, and the government and the Town Council doesn't take responsibility, who's gonna do the cleaning up and keep this island clean?"

Efrain Perez, President, BTIA
"All of these issues that we're highlighting—garbage being one of them—are very important.We're looking at the sustainability of tourism on the island. We don't have to look too far in terms of seeing what has happened with our neighbor in Tulum when it came to overcrowding, not properly managing. I think just highlighting the fact that the World Bank in its appraisal has given and has positioned San Pedro an at-risk destination, it makes it much more important for us to press on our authorities, on our municipal governments,for them to be able to start the focus not only on the garbage, but also on all the other issues we have that are impacting San Pedro: the zoning, the traffic congestion, sargassum, erosion, and the list goes on. And so like Melanie said, before we start to look at any investments and projects that are going to be produced here in San Pedro, we have to clean the house first."

Our news team took the concerns of the head table to the Area Representative, Andre Perez. While he emphasized that it is political season—implying that there may be some mischief afoot—he said that the plans for the proposed airport include an entire overhaul of Northern Ambergris. He also added that, per their request, he would be willing to dialogue with them.

Andre Perez, Area Representative, Belize Rural South
"I want to really stress that while we are focusing on the airport as becoming something of attention, we must understand that the design that is coming up for the north of Ambergris Caye is moving in a direction whereby everything is included. Not only the airport, we're talking about roads, we're talking about lights that is already going on, the paving of streets, opening up of new roads. I can remember—there are several communities here that still don't have roads that we have inherited that we're working on those. So I want to say that everything is moving synchronized."

"Now when you're talking about the trash, we do recognize—and again in consultation, we have been speaking, meeting with the mayor and the Town Council. The issue is that there's a lot of private lands that are being developed and they're using a lot of trash—we're not talking about plastic, they're using a lot of the debris and things to fill up. Yes, aesthetically it does not look good, but that is part of development. But I can assure you that the town does its best in terms of having the town kept clean. I'm open to dialogue with just about anyone in this country. What I can tell you though is that you say it's not a political rally, but if you have the person in charge of that specific organization as a mayoral candidate, then it is a political rally. But I'm not afraid to speak with them or get along with them."

However, when we asked the ANA President about the political undertones—considering Elito Arceo was at today's meeting—she rejected the notion.

But regardless, the issue remains: Northern Ambergris—the road that takes tourists to Secret Beach—is used as a dumping ground and ANA is requesting urgent attention.

We'll have more from that press conference in tomorrow's newscast.