Audubon’s Small Grants for Chunox Fisherfolk
In 2012, the Belize Audubon Society awarded the first of its small grants to fisherfolk to support income diversification in northern fishing villages like Chunox, Copper Bank and Sarteneja. To date, business ventures include poultry and honey productions, food catering, beauty and wellness services, through which thirty-seven individuals have benefitted. According to the Belize Audubon Society, this initiative helps to improve support for conservation education and stewardship within buffer communities of their co-managed protected areas. The programme contributes to improved livelihoods of the stakeholder communities and most importantly, reduces fishing pressure in marine protected areas. News Five’s Andrea Polanco tells us more about how the initiative is helping the fishing industry in Belize.
Andrea Polanco, Reporting
Small shops and humble homes line the dusty streets in Chunox Village. In this small and quiet community, life moves at a leisurely pace. On Sundays, children gather on the street side to catch up with the vendor selling cold treats on a hot day. And on the lagoon, fishermen are hard at work to make their vessels seaworthy. It’s a lively and colorful scene – where important work gets done, because in this idyllic village fishing is a way of life.
Marcio Gonzalez
Marcio Gonzalez, Vice-Chairman, Chunox Fishermen Association
“We have approximately one hundred and eighty fishermen. We have eighteen boats and like skiffs. We call it high boat because they are twenty-five foot lanchon. From the whole of the village, I would say like sixty-percent of the village is dependent on the sea that is fishermen.”
The Chunox fishermen are just a fraction of the more than three thousand registered fisherfolk across Belize. While the business of fishing is the bread and butter for villagers in Chunox, it has wide and far reaching impacts on Belize’s economy; fifteen thousand Belizeans depend on fishing for their livelihoods and sea food exports bring in over ten million U.S. dollars in revenue every year. But over the years, Belize’s fish stocks have started to feel the pressures; things like over-fishing, illegal fishing, and environmental changes continue to impact the productivity of fish stocks. And so, non-profit environmental organizations have implemented a number of measures to manage fisheries so that current and future generations can benefit. One of those ways is to provide fishermen with opportunities for other sources of income in traditional fishing villages like Chunox. Since 2013, the Belize Audubon Society started a small grants program to help fishermen and their families supplement their livelihoods by expanding on their micro business. The recipients get between one thousand to five thousand dollars through funds from Global Environmental Facility (GEF) Small Grants Program and the Gulf of Caribbean Fishing Institute (GCFI).
Lucito Ayuso
Lucito Ayuso, Community Liaison Manager, Belize Audubon Society
“What we are trying to do is to work with these communities to not solely be dependent on fishing. We know that fishing is their livelihood, but we are also asking them to engage in other alternatives that will help to supplement their livelihoods, especially during closed seasons or when things are not looking good out at sea. It means that they have come up with an innovative idea. In that that idea goes with BAS’s mission of conservation; that idea will provide benefits to the wider community and the person who applies also must have some kind of skill or has started a small business of his or her own to engage in the program.”
Recipients of this grant must participate in entrepreneurship skills training, which are monitored by the Belize Audubon Society, because the plan is for the fishers to use the business to provide longevity. Not so long ago, Fisherman Eleodoro Martinez Junior was trimming his friends and relatives’ hair inside his house to make ends meet; today, he is the proud owner of D Spot Barber Shop in Chunox village. He used the funds to buy equipment and furniture for his shop. He says it has been a blessing because the business of fishing is not always bright.
Eleodoro Martinez Jr.
Eleodoro Martinez Jr., Grant Recipient, Chunox Village
“Now I do barbering as a part time after I go fishing. I have it as an alternative because sometimes fishing goes low, so I have it as another way to make money. The money that we are getting from them [fishing] is not the right amount nuh.”
Andrea Polanco
“So it [fishing] is not really paying you guys?”
Eleodoro Martinez Jr.
“Yes it is not really paying and like that we have to fish more to get some more money and we are putting more pressure on the stocks. So, by having businesses like this I think that the fishing stocks will have a rest and will be able to replenish.”
The programme is also empowering women in Chunox Village. Relatives of fisherfolk who qualified for the programme have since improved their fast-food business, while others have expanded their cosmetology services. For many years, Arsenia Tut sold food from her family’s kitchen, but after she was awarded the grant, she built this fast food restaurant in the village. Today she is the breadwinner for her family.
Arsenia Marta Tut
Arsenia Marta Tut, Grant Recipient, Chunox Village
“I like the business. I like cook. I like deh inn the kitchen to cook because right here inna the village, we nuh got nothing fi do. I feel happy. I feel like I am a next woman now in my life. Right yah, we have a lot of lee place where di sell food too but I see that I am the first one to have a place like that.”
Martinez and Tut are just two of the thirty-seven recipients of the small grants programme. Belize Audubon Society and the Fisherman Association in the village say the impact of the program is far-reaching.
Lucito Ayuso
“People have improved their way of life by engage in terms of two things in that they do not engage solely on fishing.”
Marcio Gonzalez
“That in a way reduce the amount of fishers that we have in there because we have a lot of fisherman around the entire country and that is a way that we are seeing the decrease in fish stocks and products. But I think that Audubon is playing an important role.”
Reporting for News Five, I’m Andrea Polanco.
