Sustaining Coastal Growth and the Environment

This week, the Coastal Zone Management Authority Institute is observing Coastal Awareness Week.  In its third year, the event draws attention to the importance of sustainable coastal management and at the same time it connects partners.  We spoke with Marketing Officer of the Coastal Zone Management Authority Chad Bowman, who says that this year they are celebrating the week with a theme that will see a number of activities centered around it.

Chad Bowman

Chad Bowman, Marketing Officer, CZMAI

“This Coastal Awareness Week is under theme “Business and the Environment: A Foundation for Sustainable Growth.” The purpose of this week is to increase awareness of the sustainable use of coastal and marine resources. Each and every year we do coastal awareness week to infuse into the wider public the knowledge and the practices that would improve sustainable practices along the coastal zone. This week we have it packed with a lot of informational activities; for example this trivia event we aligned it with all the study guides – the information had questions that were for anything that emphasized development and also shows how development can also be intertwined with sustainable practices. And then we go to the seminar tomorrow; that’s Wednesday. That activity has speakers from the Caribbean; speakers here in Belize and multi-national organizations. These people will speak about some of their ventures that have proven to show development and also sustainable practices. And then on Thursday, and I think this is one of our flagship activities for the week; we have our tertiary level competition which has four schools competing from tertiary level. And these four schools are developing business concepts that show how they will use resources from the environment sustainably to make profit and make a business venture. So, this week we are trying to make it very sociable and the emphasis is on the theme and showing also what our core duties are as coastal zone management authority institute is responsible for.”