Spiny Lobster Improvement Project to Launch in Belize

The Spiny Lobster is Belize’s most valuable fishery commodity. It brings in millions of dollars in revenue for the country every year and it helps to support thousands of livelihoods. So, the partners in this sector want to see this fishery remain sustainable but they recognize that all those in the sectors must collaborate to reap the benefits. So, in 2019 the Nature Conservancy and several other partners began to implement project called the Belize Spiny Lobster Fisheries Improvement Project (FIP). Next week the partners will officially launch this project in Belize but today James Foley of the T.N.C. spoke with News Five about what they want to achieve:

James Foley, Fisheries Specialist, The Nature Conservancy Belize

James Foley

“It has been a sustainable industry up until the last fifteen to twenty years or so when we have started to see and I the co-ops agree that the despite more fishers entering the fishery the amount of total product landing has stabilized and some research suggests that there has even been some decline in the productivity of lobster as well. So, that is really where the impetus came for launching into that project. The cooperatives wanted to find a framework, a mechanism through which we could achieve positive change. It is an industry that involves multiple stakeholders across multiple sectors and the only way to manage this fishery sustainable is to bring all the partners together to work on different aspects. To implement a combined triple impact fisheries improvement project with future fisheries development model or what we call FiP + FDM. So, one of the main goals of FiP is to coordinate and continuously promote the collaboration of the national and international stakeholders of the Belize Lobster Fishery to work on improvement across the environmental, social, and economic components of the fishery.”