APAMO calls for better protection of reserves
UNESCO’s report on the state of Belize’s Barrier Reef, a World Heritage site, has confirmed that there needs to be better protection, not only in writing, but in practice of the country’s natural resources. APAMO, The Association of Protected Areas Management Organization has written the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister and is tasking the government in five areas. Its chairman, Edilberto Romero, is urging the government to recall those leases issued within the World Heritage Site.
Edilberto Romero, Chairman, APAMO
“The World Heritage Center sent the mission, as everybody knows now, to look at the situation with our world heritage site. There is a report that came last month and has been distributed in Belize. All of us should be aware of that. It raised several issues that has to do with threats to the world heritage site, development, clearing of mangroves, dredging corals and sand to fill places for real estate; things like that. It’s the number of threats that are affecting the world heritage site, putting our world heritage site in danger. We are calling on the government to seriously consider the recommendations in that report. There are a lot of recommendations there and specifically we are asking the government to address the issue of the lands; to cancel all land leases and titles, to the extent possible in the laws of Belize, that were given after 1996 that are within the world heritage site. We are asking the government to place a permanent marker for mangrove clearance within the world heritage site. We are asking the government to do a complete moratorium on dredging within the world heritage site as well as development within the world heritage site and to adopt the Coastal Zone Management Plan that should guide development within the coastal and marine areas. We are asking the government to adopt the eco-management framework that has been developed by APAMO and we’re asking the government to reactivate the National Protected Areas Commission, which is the body that should be advising the government on matters relating to protected areas. The National Protected Areas Commission was established about a year and a half ago and since December, it has not been functioning. There’s no meeting, coordinators should have been hired. There’s monies for the coordinator, but it still has not been hired.”
Romero says that the National Protected Areas Commission needs to be re-commissioned to advise the government on all protected areas in Belize.
