Climate change project to target coastal communities

Climate change: it’s a term that for many conjures up images of deserts or snow storms … not anything we have to worry about right. Well not necessarily. Every day scientists are discovering that the tiny changes occurring in our environment could add up to a dramatic shift in our natural resources and resulting quality of life. Today, local environmentalists and members of Belize’s coastal community gathered in the old capital to discuss strategies for survival. News Five’s Karla Vernon reports.

Karla Vernon, Reporting
Some came to the coastal community workshop seeking answers to issues such beach erosion, or as in the case of Timothy Flores of Dangriga, what appears to be a mysterious drop in the water table.

Timothy Flores, Gragra Lagoon Conservation Group
?When we go into the Gragra Lagoon National Park, we always go in a canoe. And many times when you are paddling you would touch the mud, now at this time. Before that, you could paddle with ease. So we know that something is happening; the water level is falling.?

Karla Vernon
?But you are not sure what??

Timothy Flores
?We are not sure what.?

Timothy Flores
?It?s a wetland area, approximately twelve hundred acres of wetlands. And the area is important for Dangriga for more than one reason. One, it is important because it is the general area that excess water in Dangriga Town drains to. The second reason is that it is also an area where fish lay their eggs, the shrimp also lay their eggs in there. And so they are protected there because the roots of the mangrove can protect them from predators.?

The Mainstreaming Adaptations to Climate Change, MACC Project, is seeking to work with community groups like the Gragra Lagoon Conservation Group through specially designed projects. The gaol is to focus on public education about the bigger issues of global warming and climate change and how they affect things right in front of them: rising sea levels, coral bleaching, droughts, floods and other disasters.

According to public education officer, Tony Deyal, such information is critical to the survival of vulnerable communities.

Tony Deyal, Public Education Officer, MACC Project
?The idea of this workshop is to bring people together; develop an index so that any community, any individual can say ?Hey, you know these are the risks, this is why I?m vulnerable to,? and get a sense of what the risks are and we will then be able to?we plan to have six pilot communities?work with these communities for them to help themselves. To see if we can mobilise resources, provide some ideas, but essentially, what we are asking them for is what we call sweat equity; put your own resources at your own disposal, work to help yourself.?

Candy Gonzalez represents the Belize Institute of Environmental Law and Policy based in San Ignacio. Her organisation networks with international agencies, but also speaks out on local environmental issues.

Candy Gonzalez, BELPO
?I?m attending this workshop because I see a lot of times that people talk about climate change and adapting or changing ways of doing things to climate change, but it never seems to get done. We do reports, we do studies, and we attend workshops but there is no action that comes out of it. And I?m here because I hope that I?ll help to be an incentive for action because nothing is really gonna change unless we act upon all of the recommendations and the things that come out of the workshop.?

Gonzalez says BELPO is already taking action on a climate change issue. In 2004, it filed a joint petition with Peru and Nepal asking the UNESCO to put the world heritage sites in these countries?in our case the Belize Barrier Reef?on an endangered list. The reason? The damaging effects of climate change.

Candy Gonzalez
?Next month, March, they are having a meeting in Paris to have experts from the three different countries come and try and educate more on how climate change and global warming impact world heritage sites; which we are supposed to be preserving for future generations, that?s part of the convention.?

Tony Deyal
?We have to get people to see that there are opportunities, benefits, there are risks and vulnerabilities that they have to deal with. And this hopefully is a start in Belize. The next stage is to have in each of the geographical areas, a big meeting of some of the communities, and we?ll meet with them, talk with them again. And then, with their help, identify six pilot communities in Belize.?

Reporting for News 5, I am Karla Vernon

The Climate Change Centre in Belmopan is the headquarters for the CARICOM project. The initiative is financed by the Global Environmental Facility and implemented by the World Bank.