BTIA Says No to Dredging and Dumping

John Burgos

The Belize Tourism Industry Association, from an industry perspective, has also raised concerns about the proposed development, and the possible environmental impact that it will have in the area of Port Loyola in Belize City and at sea, just outside of the barrier reef. The emphasis, according to Executive Director John Burgos, should be on overnight tourism, as opposed to cruise tourism.

John Burgos, Executive Director, BTIA

“The BTIA has always stated that the best direction for Belize is for us to focus more on overnight tourism.  We understand that cruise tourism does bring certain benefits to Belize, but the vast majority of the benefits and more even distribution of revenues comes through overnight tourism.  So I think that we should be more focused on that.  With regards to the proposed Port of Belize project and the cruise port expansion project, we see the importance of improving our cargo capability.  We certainly are growing as a nation, our population is growing.  I wish I could say that our exports are growing but that is another topic for another discussion.  The main concern that we have is the way the materials are going be disposed of, the dredged material which you’re talking about millions of cubic meters that are going to be dredged.  The investors are proposing for it to be disposed of in marine waters.  They are saying that it’s going to go at a certain depth, I think they were saying about twenty meters or two hundred meters, something like that, but we know how the currents of Belize work and how sensitive the areas that they are proposing, how sensitive they are with the vast ecosystems that they have their and the proximity to the barrier reef system.  So when you have these consultants and these developers tell you that there’s not going to be, that there’s not going to be any impact on the environment, you know that that is not a factual statement.  We have seen the buildup of silt material, without dredging we have seen how the currents affect the beaches and beach erosion.  So when they say that the disposal of that amount of dredged material in deep waters is not going to have an effect, it’s far from the truth.  We don’t believe that, we don’t buy that and too much is at risk for us to give them the benefit of the doubt.  So based on that alone, we believe that that portion of the project should not proceed.  We believe that they must be able to identify an area inland where they can properly dispose of that waste material.”