Birding – the Challenges and Opportunities!
The quality and long-term viability of the natural environment are critical to tourism businesses across the world. Marine animals, birds and wildlife contribute significantly and add value to Belize’s tourism industry. Birding for example, has been on the rise in the last few years, but birds across the world are under threat. While Belize has done a good job in its conservation and management efforts, there is a lot more that needs to be done to reduce the threats from poaching, illegal fires, deforestation, unsustainable development and other manmade activities. Tonight, we take a look at birding with experts in the field. Here is the story with News Five’s Andrea Polanco.
Andrea Polanco, Reporting
Nearly three billion birds have disappeared from the skies. The journal Science published a report in September 2019 which revealed the staggering decline in bird population since 1970. This report focuses on that twenty-nine percent loss of breeding birds in North America – but bird expert Dr. John Fitzpatrick of Cornell Lab of Ornithology explains how this also impacts a country like Belize.
John Fitzpatrick
Dr. John Fitzpatrick, Director, Cornell Lab of Ornithology (Cornell University)
“What this tells us is that we are not in balance and we are at risk of seeing these numbers continue to go down and ultimately causing some real problems in terms of what they reflect in terms of our landscape.”
Andrea Polanco
“What does this loss represent or mean for Belize, where twenty-percent of our birds are migratory birds?”
Dr. John Fitzpatrick
“The Belize bird population is an interesting one. Just like the people, it is a melting pot of birds; some resident and locally migratory within the tropics and many of them as you just pointed out migrating in from breeding grounds in North America where they will spend half the year here. That study that indicates a loss of birds in North America clearly indicates that Belize itself is losing birds because many of the birds are birds that wander here.”
The threats to birds vary. Things like climate change, illegal logging, development, and poaching are just a few of the factors that threaten bird species. Author of Birds of Belize, Dr. Lee Jones has seen this firsthand how specie has pretty much vanished from Belize.
Lee Jones
Dr. Lee Jones, Author, Birds of Belize
“I can think of one bird that has apparently gone extinct since I’ve been here that’s in the Mountain Pine Ride is the Eastern Blue Bird. It wasn’t common but it hasn’t been seen now in twelve years. And I think that is from habitat destruction; bark beetle infestation; fire regimes; a number of things that could have caused its extinction. Whether that was natural or whether that was man-induced or what – but there are a few things. Extinction is final. I mean when something is gone, it is gone. A lot of things have gotten rarer but they are still hanging on.”
Although birds face an increasing number of threats, Belize is still at the forefront of bird conservation. And this has helped to propel birding as a growing tourist offering. In 2018 alone, an estimated thirty thousand tourists visited Belize for birding activities. And this in turn, has also helped to raise the importance of birds in Belize:
Dr. Lee Jones
“We probably have more habitat or forest reserves or intact habits per unit area for the country than almost any place anywhere. Even thought we talk about habitat destruction and all the things that go with that, it is minimal when compared to places like El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and places like that. This also feeds into tourism because people come to Belize because they know this is where they can get all these rare birds, that are not so rare in Belize, but that they can’t get elsewhere.”
Dr. John Fitzpatrick
“This is an amazing country for getting people engaged in Birds which in turns get them thinking about the natural systems. That is a model for how countries all over the world could be moving, so Belize is really in a leadership role in that way.”
But there must be continued conservation and protection efforts to maintain healthy populations of birds which in turn will sustain birding for tourism purposes. Fitzpatrick says each person can play a part.
Dr. John Fitzpatrick
“One of the thing that every citizen can do is think about your daily behavior in terms of what you consume. Use less plastics – we shouldn’t be using plastic straws anymore. We should be using recyclable, reusable materials and everything that we eat and drink so that we have less pollution to the landscapes. You must pay attention that your landscape is cleaner and that we are encouraging local individuals to grow native plants, native vegetation that allows these migratory birds and some of the resident birds to live and to be safer. The other thing is to get out and enjoy it and spread the word because the more the populace in general understands that Belize is a magical country for birds, then the better the chances are that Belize as a whole, from the politicians to government officials to local individuals and private individuals, the more the country itself enjoys and rejoices in what you have, the better off these birds are going to be.”
Reporting for News Five, I’m Andrea Polanco.
Later this week, we’ll tell you how Central America is working to expand birding opportunities as a regional tourism offering and what opportunities exist for Belize.
