Environmentalists Say Dumping of Dredge Material will Threaten Barrier Reef
The Belize Coalition to Save Our Natural Heritage, a consortium of environmental N.G.O.s, has written to Prime Minister John Briceño highlighting a number of environmental concerns with the proposed development. Chief among those issues is the lack of an adequate reason to justify the dumping of dredge material in the area just beyond the barrier reef. Such activity, according to Nadia Bood of the World Wildlife Fund threatens to undermine the recent effort to place Belize’s barrier reef back on the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Nadia Bood, World Wildlife Fund
“Our position remains the same that we have shared with them before in prior presentations that they’ve made to us. We are totally against the dumping of the dredge materials in our marine environment. We feel that it doesn’t make sense to risk impact to our reef system and our marine ecosystem overall from this particular proposed activity.”
Isani Cayetano
“Regarding the expansion of the actual port facility itself, where do you guys stand on that because I am gathering that the dredging to build the docking facility is one thing, but the expansion of the port is something else. Where do you guys stand on that?”
Nadia Bood
Nadia Bood
“Well we did express our concerns to the fact of the potential impact on our mangroves and potential flooding in that area and we expressed our concerns about that to make sure that they would consider mitigating options for that. But our position has really been the dumping of the dredging materials at sea that can pose a significant risk.”
Isani Cayetano
“Other organizations have pointed to the fact that if Waterloo were to proceed with the dredging and the dumping of this material into the area of the barrier reef, that the country’s standing as a World Heritage Site regarding the barrier reef itself, would be in jeopardy.”
Nadia Bood
“It will indeed be in jeopardy. Myself and my organization worked tirelessly with the government to try to address the key indicators to get Belize to address what the country had to address for the World Heritage Site committee to even consider Belize getting removed off the endangered list. It has just been two years and we were all celebrating and come now, for one project they are contemplating dumping material at sea, it would be in total contrary to what we had set out to do in terms of safeguarding the health and universal value of the World Heritage Site.”
