Conservation groups receive U.N. grants
Environmental awareness has come a long way from a generation ago when bush was only good for chopping and wild animals were shot with rifles instead of cameras. We may not be certain exactly why the public’s attitude has been altered, but one factor may be the steady stream of small grants, which have raised the profile of conservation in dozens of Belizean communities. Today News 5’s Jacqueline Woods was on hand for one such disbursement.
Jacqueline Woods, Reporting
The three cheques totalling over one hundred and ten thousand dollars were given to the Sibun Watershed Association, The Caribena Producers Cooperative Society and the Belize Audubon Society. The recipients will use the money to fund ongoing environmental projects.
Rigoberto Blanco, the project coordinator for the Sibun Watershed Association, received almost six thousand dollars to promote natural resource management and environmental protection in the Sibun River Watershed. Blanco says the association has completed an awareness campaign and monitored the quality of the river’s water. Today the work continues with a number of school based activities.
Rigoberto Blanco, Coordinator, Sibun Watershed Assn.
“We just took out posters to target the schools and later this month we will be taking out colouring books to target the school kids on watershed issues.”
The cheques were donated by the United Nations Development Programme, through its Small Grants Programme and Community Management of Protected Areas Conservation Project COMPACT.
Philip Balderamos, Coordinator, G.E.F. Small Grants Prog.
“All of these funds are part of the Global Environmental Facility Small Grants Programme which funds non-governmental organizations and community based groups with activities which address certain environmental issues and also focussed on improving people’s livelihood. And all of these projects have elements of conservation and elements of sustainable development.”
One such project by the Caribena Co-op of San Pedro aims to train local fishermen on how to collect information to find out just how effective the zoning has been in the Bacalar Chico Marine Protected Area. It received a grant of forty-five thousand dollars.
Manuel Heredia, Vice Chairman, Caribena Producers Coop.
“By the time the project is completed we will have sufficient information. When I say sufficient, it will be correct information that will be distributed to the Fisheries Department, the different organizations, the school children around the nation. We are hoping that we will have this type of information, and I think it is only then that we will know exactly the good location if the protected areas are really the ones that should be there or if it should be changed, altered and those types of things.
The Belize Audubon Society received the largest disbursement. The sixty thousand dollar cheque will be used to finance two projects to promote sustainable fishing and educate those who use the resource.
Ian August, COMPACT Project Manager, B.A.S.
“Stakeholders communities have been identified as being Copper Bank, Chunox, Sarteneja, the reason being that most of the fishermen who utilize the Lighthouse Reef Atolls, the Blue Hole and utilize the atolls itself are from that area. So we are currently working on objective two of the project, which is working within schools of the communities and at this point, this money will be used towards, I guess, proper relations. I mean extending, expanding the relationship with the communities which started since last year.”
Balderamos says the projects also will help to reduce the overall threats to the seven marine protected areas that make up the Belize Barrier Reef World Heritage Site. Jacqueline Woods for News 5.
