While they are looking at marine spatial planning -there are questions being raised about the true state of Belize's fisheries stocks.
An article published in the Amandala a month ago said, quote, "17 commercial fish species are overexploited. This alarming revelation challenges the Belize Fisheries Department's persistent claims of healthy and sustainable fish stocks, and raises serious concerns about the future of Belize's blue economy."
Today, the former Director of the Fisheries Department and the current Director, Blue Bond and Finance Permanence Unit, Beverly Wade addressed this thorny subject:
Beverly Wade, Director, Blue Bond and Finance Permanence Unit
"I know that fisheries management in Belize has always a been a collaborative approach in fact the NGOS you are seeing in the room and other NGOS are working constantly with the fisheries department looking at fisheries management i understand that there are particular issues with that particular project but I don't think that it's a matter of a hands off approach I think the details are not necessarily out there and I would encourage you to find out about the details one day with regards to overfishing. Overfishing has always been tagged as a threat. It's not anything that we have said as a country that's been running away from it is something that we work with partners to see how you can address aspects of overfishing. I wouldn't say that the resources in Belize are totally overfished I think that is a very redoing description but if you are a fisheries scientist you can well look at the data and find areas like we do with our partners on the ground that we know they are localized overfishing happening here and what are the strategies we are going to employ to those areas of potential threats the same way we have to look at the threat of our fisheries resources are being impacted by climate change and this is the worst bleaching year we have ever seen in Belize and the reef is really habitat to those important species we are looking at how do we now rationalize that? How do we also rationalize the fact that we are now looking at how development is now approached in this space? So there is a number of things that has to be looked at and I think that Belize is at a place where countries like Barbados are here to learn from us because we have rarely been taking a collaborative approach to it to see how do you now address sustainable fisheries on a whole in Belize and to look at the strategies we've been employing and to continue to learn from those people."
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