Environmental funding agencies converge in Belize
Close to forty percent of Belize is designated as protected areas and maintaining that is not cheap. This week a group of organizations which fund conservation projects are meeting at the Biltmore Hotel to exchange experiences, discuss new challenges and opportunities. Kendra Griffith reports.
Kendra Griffith, Reporting
Representatives of the organizations which form the Latin American and Caribbean Network of Environmental Funds, RedLAC are engaging in a week of discussions as part of their tenth annual general assembly. Belize’s Protected Areas Conservation Trust is the host.
Valdemar Andrade, Executive Director, PACT
“We are well known for biodiversity and ecotourism. And so because this year’s theme is business opportunities for conservation, it is basically an opportune time for them to come to Belize and see some of these things in action.”
According to Pedro Leitao, Chair of the RedLAC Executive Committee, funds for biodiversity conservation traditionally came from charity, but that is quickly changing.
Pedro Leitao, Chair of the RedLAC Executive Committee
“Biodiversity does make money, can make money and businesses are becoming interested in how to invest money in biodiversity and also to mitigate risks because whenever a bigger investment and has negative impact over biodiversity, the funding mechanism, the banks and investors responsible for those impacts will be sued, so they are looking for safeguards for their investments.”
Valdemar Andrade
“We are also looking at payment for environmental services, how do we look at some kind of fee or some kind of fund coming out of the use of water, the use of the environment like the trees, how do we ensure that they pay their fair share in contributing towards conservation. We will also look at micro-enterprises and how do we work with the communities to ensure that there is also a ground up approach and not only a top down approach.”
RedLAC boasts an annual operational budget of more than seventy million U.S. dollars. And since its inception it has financed over three thousand project in the region.
Pedro Leitao
“Each fund has its own governing board, council composed of leadership, national leadership, international leaderships that take upon themselves overview how the funds are being used by the funding organisms. There is money out there. The question is what are the criteria for getting to that money. Is it transparency, information, good projects, good ideas, and the ability to actually understand what those who have the money need as a condition to provide the funding for environmental projects.”
Here at home, Belize’s national trust fund, PACT, earns around three point eight million dollars yearly through fees collected from departure taxes and cruise passengers. The majority of that money is then invested into conservation projects. Executive Director Valdemar Andrade says they are also trying to get the private sector to go the conservation route.
Valdemar Andrade
“How does the private sector invest in these kinds of conservation initiatives instead of investing it in trying mitigate, they can actually invest in basically abating these things from occurring. For example for a hydroelectric dam, it is better to invest in reforestation, so they don’t have the sedimentation coming on and clogging up the dam rather than trying to mitigate at the end when the sediment is already there and trying to them dispose of the sediment. So there are many opportunities for private sector industries.”
“At the end of the day that’s the truth and its how to we work with the developers to make them understand that it is basically an insurance on their investment at the end of the day so that ten years down the road when we have the hundred year storm their investment doesn’t just wash away. So we have to engage from a business perspective and not necessarily looking at it as green and mean.”
Andrade says government also has to play its role in enforcing its environmental laws. Kendra Griffith reporting for News Five.
Funding agencies from Africa, the Philippines, and Bangladesh are also participating in the assembly.
