PACT Awards Grant Funding, FCD Receives Lions Share

The Protected Areas Conservation Trust announced today that it is disbursing one point one million dollars in grants to various N.G.O.s.  The biggest beneficiary is Friends for Conservation which is getting close to six hundred thousand dollars for a project called Towards Sustainability through an Improved Management Effectiveness’. The money is earmarked to institute sustainability mechanisms through infrastructure and promotion; strengthen research, protection and surveillance; and improve governance.  This initiative, however, does not include funding for the park rangers who co-manage the Chiquibul National Park. The F.C.D is organizing a telethon this weekend to raise another half a million dollars to cover the expenses for twenty-four rangers.  Another sizeable grant goes to Ya’axche Conservation Trust of three hundred and sixteen thousand dollars which will go for its project entitled ‘A holistic Approach to Protected Area Management in the Maya Golden Landscape. The Southern Environmental Association is benefitting in the sum of one hundred and eighty-three thousand dollars for its project named ‘Cultivating sustainability of two protected areas in southern Belize’. The grant will be used to increase sustainability efforts and improve facilities and infrastructure at the Gladden Spit and Silk Cayes Marine Reserve and Laughing Bird Caye National Park. Small Grants went to the Steadfast Tourism and Conservation Association in the amount of thirty six thousand dollars for the ‘Management Plan and Water Quality Monitoring Program Development in the Billy Barquedier National Park’ and to the Rio Blanco Mayan for Increasing visitation to Rio Blanco National Park’.