UNDP grants $75,000 for environmental projects
This morning, three community based organisations received monies to fund projects aimed at preserving the environment. The Golden Stream Corridor Preserve, Toledo Eco-Tourism Association and Rancho Dolores Environmental and Development Group were all approved for small grants from the United Nations Development Program to continue projects already underway. Today representatives of those organisations picked up cheques totalling just over seventy-five thousand dollars. According to Philip Balderamos, National Co-ordinator for the Small Grants Program, the project supports ten communities in Southern Belize.
Philip Balderamos, Co-ordinator, Small Grants Program
“To provide support to ten communities that make up the Toledo Eco-Tourism Association, to build their capacity, particularly in the line of knowing about local birds in their villages. And we are providing equipment and training for those residents, to be able to monitor bird populations in their community and also to better equip themselves to become guides for the eco-tourists who go down to stay with the Toledo Eco-Tourism Association.”
Ann-Marie Williams
“In the long run, how will a community in the deep-south benefit from a project of this nature?”
Philip Balderamos
“It would be in the form of income generation because there is quite a lot of interests from travellers to visit the deep south. To experience the Mayan culture, to look at the natural resources of the area, the forests, the rivers, the wildlife and plants. And these people are prepared to contribute user fees to pay guides, to stay in the accommodation, to buy local food from the Mayans, to buy arts and craft, to look at their cultural presentations. And all of these different activities would provide some opportunity for the residents of those villages to earn some income from the visitors who come to their area.”
Non-governmental organisations and groups wishing to access small grant funding of up to a maximum of one hundred thousand dollars are asked to contact UNDP on Constitution Drive in Belmopan.
