Big donation helps protect marine resources
It may be the end of April, but for a group of conservation organizations it is feeling like Christmas, as a regional initiative this afternoon provided some much needed gifts. At a brief ceremony in Belize City, over eight hundred thousand dollars worth of equipment and infrastructural materials were handed over. According to National Coordinator for the Meso American Barrier Reef System project Beverly Wade, this donation will make it easier to protect our coastal and marine resources.
Beverly Wade, National Coordinator, M.B.R.S.
“Today what was officially signed over was the visitor’s centre for Bacalar Chico Marine Reserve, which is in excess of two hundred thousand dollars, and equipment which will support the monitoring programmes, especially the spawning aggregations monitoring programmes, the synoptic monitoring programs, and also equipment to fit the marine reserves, primarily Sapodilla Cayes and the Bacalar Chico Marine Reserve.”
Patrick Jones
“How important is this equipment to Belize?”
Beverly Wade
“Oh, it’s very much important. In order to carry out programmes, you need the tools to carry them out and we are always grateful when we could get the tools to carry out our work. We are a developing country and getting equipments is not one of the easiest things for us to do. And as a result when we sign onto to projects like these and we participate in programmes like these with them fitting us with the tools to carry out the work, makes it much more easier for us.”
“Some equipment also went to our partners suck as coastal zone and the are also going to some of our C.B.O. partners, community based organizations such as Friends of Nature, TIDE, the Meteorology Department also got some equipment. Its basically everybody, who has something to do with the health of the Meso American Barrier Reef Systems is included in the project.”
The M.B.R.S. project is a fifteen-year programme now in its first phase. It serves the Caribbean coastal areas of Belize, Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala. Funding for today’s donation was implemented by the World Bank through the U.N.D.P’s Global Environmental Facility.
