Belize Audubon Society Tackles Fishing Pressures with Copper Bank Fisherfolk
Last week we showed you how the Chunox beneficiaries of the Belize Audubon Society’s small grants programme are using their grants to improve their standard of living and to reduce fishing pressures. Since 2012, BAS has been working with fisherfolk in Chunox, Copper Bank and Sarteneja in Corozal. In these communities, more than fifty-percent of the populations rely on fishing – and conservationists want to provide families with other opportunities so that they don’t have to rely one hundred percent on these resources. So, tonight we take you to Copper Bank Village where several fishers and their families are using their grants to diversify their income. Andrea Polanco reports.
Andrea Polanco, Reporting
Myrtha Flores is making home-made recado. Word around Copper Bank Village is that she makes the best recado in Belize. Myrtha’s annatto based spice blend contains a mixture of at least eight different herbs and spices from oregano to black pepper, onion and garlic – those are added to the annatto seeds, mixed together and placed inside this electric mill. The mixture passes through the grinder at least at two times for a fine orange-red aromatic blend – which is then separated into portions and packaged off for sale.
Myrtha Flores
Myrtha Flores, Grant Recipient
“I see that my recado is really, really good here in this village because all the people from here come and buy my one. When the people come, the people say my one is better than the one they buy in other place. People say they come here and buy because my one is better.”
Andrea Polanco
“What you think makes yours better?”
Myrtha Flores
“The flavor and taste. Aha. Because they say when they cook the other ones don’t have flavor.”
It’s a small mom and pop operation here in Copper Bank Village in Corozal. Myrtha makes both red and black recado to sell – for cooks to stew meats, make tamales, soups and other Belizean favourites. Myrtha’s husband David Flores is a fisherman who farms the annatto or achiote trees as they are called, to help diversify his livelihood.
David Flores
David Flores, Grant Recipient
“We neva really think about doing for business, just using for us but then people started to come and ask us if we don’t have and asked if we don’t have an extra one and then we started to sell it that way. So, we see that we could earn something from it because yes people were asking for it.”
When they started out – they only had a small hand-operated grinder. But a grant from the Belize Audubon Society’s small grants program helped Myrtha to buy this big electric grinder which has amplified production. And sales have been good, so much so that Myrtha has opened her own restaurant in the village.
Myrtha Flores
“The first money that I get with my work for the recado, I opened my restaurant. With the money that I sell, for my recado, I opened my restaurant back there.”
Andrea Polanco
“So, the recado has empowered you to become a businesswoman?”
Myrtha Flores
“Yes. Yes. It is going good.”
Myrtha’s Recado and other small businesses have been popping up around the village in recent years. This wasn’t always the case, because Copper Bank is a traditional fishing village. And present day, there are about one hundred fishermen in the village. Romeo Gorosica has been a fisherman most of his life but he will tell you that fishing is no easy business.
Romeo Gorosica
Romeo Gorosica, Vice-Chairman, Copper Bank Fishermen Association
“Fishing industry is not like before. Fishing industry, I could see it and a lotta fishermen could see it that there are too many fishermen and that is one of the biggest problems in the fishing industry. We have to spend more times out there and before you just go for two, three, four days and we have the amount and we come out to Belize, but now it is a lot different; a lot different.”
And so he jumped on the opportunity to advance his table and chairs rental business through a small grant from Belize Audubon Society.
Romeo Gorosica
“I buy more tables, more chairs and I made my business a little bit bigger. I try to work hard because I see that is the way that I could make more money to sustain my family.”
Three youth in the village didn’t want to make a living from fishing. They started a small business called Eden’s Aquaponics. The trio is growing tilapia while growing crops – but this organic business has not been easy. These guys say a grant from Audubon is helping to turn things around so that they can expand their business – and use green energy.
Aheizer Cal
Aheizer Cal, Grant Recipient
“The grant helped us to extend another bed. So, we have another bed of two hundred and fifty plants. To find stability in cost of production, we managed to invest in solar powered plants to cut down on the costs. Right now, we established here in the village approximately one dollar a pound. The Mennonites sells fifty-cents a pound, but we still managed to sell because of the quality and also because the vegetables take longer.”
The grants are promoting conservation and empowering fisherfolk families Copper Bank so that they no longer have to depend on fishing alone. The plan is to expand the program – and while Audubon recognizes that its strength is in conservation – it also knows that the fishing industry is vital to Belize and Belizeans – and that this effort to help reduce fishing pressures of illegal and over-fishing through income diversification is working.
Amanda Acosta
Amanda Acosta, Executive Director, Belize Audubon Society
“With Belize Audubon, when it comes to socio-economic benefits, we realize that is not our forte. We are an N.G.O. that focuses on conservation but we realize that we can’t compete with people who have to live and we can’t compete with survivalism. We have to figure out how we can help people provide for themselves, so that they can then provide and they can take care of the resources.”
Lucito Ayuso
Lucito Ayuso, Community Liaison Manager, Belize Audubon Society
“We have developed what you call a communication and investment strategy plan where the program could expand, where the program could grow and where it could provide even more benefits to the wider communities in the form of employment, in the form of maybe creating small industries.”
Romeo Gorosica
“As an Association we try to work with the fishermen. We try to explain to the fishermen that those organizations that come and try to help the fishermen, they are doing good things because in the future if we don’t take care of the fishing, the fishing will be done.”
Reporting for News Five, I’m Andrea Polanco.
