May quake damaged reef; UNESCO adds it to danger list
The earthquake that shook Belize on May twenty-eighth will not be forgotten anytime soon. It appears that there are areas other than Monkey River, Placencia and Independence villages which have been damaged by the seismic activity. The tremors, which measured seven point one on the Richter scale, did not spare sections of the barrier reef. The Toledo Institute for Development and Environment (TIDE) conducted a visual survey of the reef within the Port Honduras Marine Reserve, located off the coast of Toledo District. One hundred and thirty-eight mangrove cayes are located within the hundred and sixty square mile marine reserve. Nicola Foster, Senior Marine Biologist for TIDE, says that in addition to various degrees of coral destruction, two major lobster habitats have been destroyed.
Voice of: Nicola Foster, Senior Marine Biologist, TIDE
“On the shallow reef it shows minimal damage. These areas were very flat areas and they suffered minimal damage so very few broken colonies. But on the reef, further out, which is just on the edge of our marine reserve, about fifteen miles from the coast, we have some steep walls and on the edge of the walls, the reef that was running along the top slipped down on the side of the walls. In addition to that, running across the reed we found some cracks. So the reef has opened up by a few centimetres. There are some cracks running through the reef. In addition, we also had a number of broken colonies and overturned colonies. These tend to be the more fragile colonies that had just broken apart and shattered and then some of the older colonies had fallen over.”
Jose Sanchez
“In terms of the value, is there an estimate of how much damage? Is it really bad?”
Voice of Nicola Foster
“We haven’t put a value on the damage that we’ve seen. Out of fifteen sites that we surveyed, only two had damage so in terms of Port Honduras Marine Reserve, I would say that’s fairly low on the number of sites. However, there are two sites that were badly damaged. The areas that suffered the damage were renowned lobster habitats which are now destroyed. We haven’t put a value on that yet but we may try to do that ion the future and work out what dollar value has been lost through the loss of habitat.”
Jose Sanchez
“Do you think then that there’s a need to look at other parts of the reef?”
Voice of Nicola Foster
“Yes, I think it would be useful to do visual surveys in other areas; particularly areas that have the walls similar to where our reefs have been damaged to see if there’s anything similar particularly just east of us in the Sapodilly Cayes in the Barrier Reef. I think the further north you go there will probably be less damage as distance from the earthquake increases.”
And in a related development, News Five has just been informed that UNESCO has formally inscribed Belize’s Barrier Reef on the list of World Heritages in Danger. In March, UNESCO’s officials Mark Fuller and Marc Patry visited several sites within the reserve and noted that commercial development and dredging were taking place in eco-sensitive areas such as the Pelican Cayes.
