Diving > Articles > Country with a Green Heart

When Aldous Huxley breezed through Belize back in the 1930s, he remarked "If the end of the world had any ends, British Honduras would certainly be one of them." Belize is a bit of a backwater. The size of Wales, with a population about a third of Cardiff's, it isn't exactly on the map. In fact, most people don't even know where exactly Belize is. Off the Ivory Coast? Somewhere in the Pacific? The name rings a bell, but not much else.

Belize is an anomaly in many ways. Wedged between the boot of Mexico and the shoulder of Guatemala, it is the only country in Central America where you can ask for a cup of tea and not be met ¿Qué? While bloody revolutions and tyrannical dictators have scarred its neighbours' history, Belize has enjoyed a stable democracy for as long as anyone can remember. The country's environment is also comparatively intact, with over 60% of its surface still forested and over 20% of it protected by parks, reserves and biospheres. A backwater it may be, but, as the adage goes, where there's muck there's brass.

Belize's shiniest brass comes in the shape of the barrier reef whose tiny islands, known locally as cayes (pronounced "keys") hug its Caribbean coast like a pearl necklace. The reef is second only in size to the Australia's Great Barrier and has been attracting dive enthusiasts ever since Jacques Cousteau brought its wonders to the attention of the world in the late 1970s. Inland, the country boasts the largest jaguar reserve in the world in the Cockscomb Basin, and impressive Mayan ruins of Altun Ha and Caracol. The Meso-American Wildlife Corridor also incorporates most of Belize's protected areas.

The country's melting pot mix of different cultures, from the laid-back Caribbean and passionate Latin to the shy and remote Mayan, make it difficult to pin down. It is also a young country, where dreaming of a better life and creating one seem to go hand in hand. Belize's youthful population and the proactive green ethos which drives the country combine to imbue a sense of optimism that its natural wonders will be enjoyed by future generations. Local Creoles have a saying all of their own, which seems to hit the country's environmental philosophy succinctly on the head: "Coward man kep soun bone". In other words, the cautious man lives longer.

Like a giant pupil in a sea of turquoise, The Blue Hole on the Lighthouse Reef atoll is a perfectly circular limestone sinkhole more than 300 feet across and 412 feet deep. The array of bizarre stalactites and limestone formations which mould its walls seem to become more grotesque and malevolent the deeper one dives. Near to the Blue Hole, one of Belize's largest protected areas, Half Moon Caye Natural Monument, encompasses 10,000 acres of the atoll and 15 square miles of surrounding waters.

The reserve protects a 4,000-member booby colony, one of only two in the Caribbean, and was the Belize Audubon Society's first reserve, established in 1982. The booby is a slow-witted, white-feathered bird with a golden head and long blue-grey beak. It was summarily massacred by early sailors and was on the brink of extinction before the reserve was set up. Some 98 other species of birds have been recorded on the caye, including ospreys, warblers and white-crowned pigeons.

The Audubon in Belize enjoys a unique role. It is one of the few countries in which the organisation operates where it runs and manages parks and reserves on behalf of the government. These number six in total and combine with the organisation's programme of environmental education and advocacy. The Audubon now has 22 trained field staff and is constantly running training courses for more. Revenues from admission charges only make up 15-20% of the cost of running the parks, the short-fall being made up by the government and other organisations. The Audubon have combined with other NGOs such as the World Wildlife Fund and the MacArthur Foundation to improve infrastructure and services in many of their parks.

From their cramped offices in Belize City, from where they sell everything from posters and postcards to T-shirts and books, the Audubon readily admits there exists a lack of human resources in Belize. It believes its most pressing task is to remedy this situation. It has played a pivotal role in raising eco-consciousness in the country over the last fifteen years, and, with its close relationship to the government, will continue to be an important player in Belize's resource management strategies. Before last year's election, it published its environmental blueprint for sustainable development and will be pushing the new government to adopt its policy recommendations.

The most developed caye on the reef is Ambergris, close to Belize's northern border with Mexico. The caye boasts around 700 hotel rooms, and its largest town, San Pedro, is the largest hub for tour operators in the country. The town has suffered from the effects of rapid growth and though the new Coastal Zone Management Plan hopes to improve and 'green' infrastructure on the island, many environmentalists despair at the pollution and short-termism which has prevailed to date.

Four miles offshore from Ambergris lies the Hol Chan Marine Reserve, jointly sponsored by the Belizean government, the World Wildlife Fund and other US NGOs, the first of its kind in Central America. The reserve provides ideal diving for snorkellers and inexperienced divers alike since it is rarely more than 30 feet deep while having one of the greatest concentrations of fish in the region.

The largest marine reserve on the barrier reef is Glover's Reef, the most southerly of the atolls, named after the 17th century pirate John Glover, whose family lived on one of the cayes, and whose descendants are buried there. Today the atoll is known to be the most biologically rich in the Caribbean Basin, and most of its 15 mile-length and 5 mile width is protected by the reserve established in 1993. In 1991, Middle Caye was purchased by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), part of the New York Zoological Society, and Belize's largest marine research station established.

Tom Bright is the current manager of the remote island. He's a jovial, rotund and retired oceanography professor who happened to be passing last year while cruising the Caribbean with his wife. This year he'll spend nine months on the tiny island, making sure everything runs smoothly for the visiting scientists who come to do their research.

"There aren't any park wardens for the reserve," Tom explains, "so we kind of act as a citizen's police force. Last year, I caught a live-aboard ship dragging its anchor over some coral, filmed it underwater and sent the tape to the police. The boat was fined $70,000 and hasn't been seen since."

The main threat to the reserve's integrity comes from the local fishermen who dive for conch shells and lobster. They often flout the seasonal regulations imposed to help the populations recover from years of over-fishing. Doctor Charles Acosta, a Belizean marine scientist, spends hundreds of hours a year monitoring these populations and has little time for the fishermen.

"I know exactly where they've been and when from the damage they've done to the reef," he told me. "To date not one has been fined by the government. We need to enforce the legislation if we are to preserve this unique resource. The fishermen don't seem to understand that it's their children's livelihoods we're trying to protect. We're not doing it for the hell of it."

Although one of the most remote of the atolls, four of Glover's Reef's cayes have tourist accommodation. The most extensive of these is the Manta Reef Resort on Southwest Caye, the only Belizean-owned tourist operation on the reef. On Northeast Caye, the US-based Slickrock Adventures offer week-long package trips including kayaking, fishing and diving. North of this is Long Caye, where the Lomont family have survived three hurricanes and other calamities for over fifteen years. They offer rustic but charming cabin accommodation, without electricity or running water, from $100 a week, and can offer all kinds of activities. All of these operations have begun to collect donations and contributions from visitors which go towards the management of the reserve. It is hoped eventually all tourist operations on the reef will actively contribute to the protection of the resource on which they depend.

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 two-week to three-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.

Programme For Belize is one of the country’s EU-sponsored organisations, though it is probably its most controversial. 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.

Behind all these conservation initiatives is the Belizean government's commitment to rational resource use. Progress is slow, as with so much that is institutional, but it is being made nonetheless. Arguably the government's most important legislation of late was the 1998 Coastal Zone Management (CZM) Act, the result of five years of research and planning into how best to manage the resources of the coast with the mounting pressures of population growth, changing land-uses on the mainland and the mushrooming of the tourism industry. Belize was also a signatory of an agreement with Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras to improve co-operation in monitoring and managing the Meso-Caribbean Barrier Reef which the countries share. In July 1998, the reef was given Global 200 status by UNESCO. Later this year, a CZM Agency and Institute will be inaugurated, reinforcing the government's commitment to the sustainable development of the coast.

Janet Gibson, the project advisor for the CZM Project, is optimistic. "The Act was a big step forward for Belize on the road to integrating of all the institutions involved in the coast and making them work toward common goals with as little conflict as necessary. Funding and the development of human resources are the biggest challenges we face.

Aldous Huxley also noted dryly on his travels that Belize "is not on the way from anywhere to anywhere else." The country's new generation of entrepreneurs, conservationists and park wardens would beg to differ I'm sure.

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