Is There the Political Will to Improve Belize’s Rank on Endangered List?

Valentino Shal

The gist of the report card session today is that the government is doing some things right, but there is more that needs to be done, and more that needs to be done sooner rather than later. So what exactly is the holdup?

Valentino Shal, World Wildlife Fund

“If you look 2009 to now – seven years. Year after year after year – and this year the World Heritage Committee already released its draft decision and guess what. This year will be just like last year and the year before that. We are still going to be on the endangered list. There are several issues that contribute to that, and one of them is the lack of political will. One of them is the failure of policy-makers to address the issue as they need to do. These resources and this sector is extremely important to the economy. Now there is a mismatch between that appreciation or that understanding and the actions needed to be taken in order to preserve that, in order to conserve that, in order to ensure that we continue to get those issues met. So I do think in a large part it is a lack of political will. It is a large part from the lack of resources. We know that the government budget is always stretched thin and so it is a combination of many factors but I think lack of political will and lack of resources are at the heart of it.”