Belize Leads the Way (excerpt) by Dominic Hamilton
(DominicHamilton@compuserve.com)
Ecologically-orientated tourism is taking off on the Belize reef. There are now
several organisations running operations up and down the coast. The longest
serving is the British organisation Coral Caye Conservation (CCC), now based on
the Turneffe Islands. Volunteers come from 2 week to 3 month periods and
collect baseline data which is then passed on to the Fisheries Department and
the Marine Biology Department of the University of Belize. CCC has also been
instrumental in the development of human resources. It has now trained over a
hundred Belizeans how to SCUBA dive through its Charitable Trust. Many former
students are now involved in scientific research themselves.
Other organisations active on the reef are International Zoological Expeditions
on Southwater Caye and the British youth charity Raleigh International. The
latter contributes towards an on-going study of sedimentation levels along the
reef which is of growing concern due to land erosion on the mainland. The
project is sponsored by the European Union and involves scientists from the UK
and Belize.
Programme For Belize is another organisation sponsored by the EU, though it is
one of the country's more controversial NGOs. The first thing I was told when I
went to see them was that they believed in managed development. The aim of the
229,000-acre Rio Bravo Conservation Area which they administer is to make it
self-sustaining, utilising forest resources as well as income from controlled
tourism. Through various sponsorships schemes, Programme for Belize bought up
tracts of land in the 80s and 90s, including some of the most pristine forest
to be found in the country, encompassing several different vegetation types and
numerous archaeological sites.
The organisation's fundamental long-term goal is to pay for the Rio Bravo's
conservation through sales revenues derived from its renewable natural
resources. For this reason, some environmentalists have been sceptical of its
commercial motives. However, of the various educational and vocational courses
they run, and their achievements thus far, it is hard not to regard the
Programme's realist approach to conservation as an innovative and laudable
example of resource management.
With numerous grassroots initiatives taking shape throughout the country,
Belize's natural wonders seem to be in good hands. The Toledo Ecotourism
Association is one such organisation, attracting praise from abroad for its
bottom-up approach to tourism in the south of the country. The Ix Chel Farm and
Rainforest Medicine Trail run by the energetic Rosita Arvigo, is an excellent
example of tourism aiding medical research. The farm now welcomes up to 5,000
visitors a year, and has enabled them to acquire a 6,000-acre medicinal plant
reserve to further their research.
Wildtracks is an organisation run by the British couple Paul and Zoe Walker.