Derick Hendy is B.T.B.’s Frontline Hero 2023

The Belize Tourism Board has recognized Derick Hendy with the Frontline Hero Award for 2023.  The employee of the Belize Audubon Society is also the site manager for the Crooked Tree Wildlife Sanctuary.  Hendy shares the significance of this recognition for the work that he does in conserving the natural environment.  Here’s that interview.

Derick Hendy

Derick Hendy, Belize Audubon Society

“I am the site manager for Crooked Tree Wildlife Sanctuary and I have just won a Frontline Hero Award that BTB has awarded me.  What that signifies is because I work out at the protected area at the frontline basin, meet people, do educational outreach, community outreach and meet visitors as they come and look at all the infrastructure and maintenance that the site needs.  Well this award means a whole lot to me because it seems like hard work has paid off and I am leaving like a legacy for the next generation to follow and try to take care of our environment.  Basically, whenever guests would enter the community, the first building that they would come across is our little visitors center.  They stop there to get information about the site, they would pay an entrance fee and we give them an orientation about why the area is very important because it is a catchment basin.  Whenever the water leaves the watershed that is the storing point that water is going to store for a period of time and then it will gradually release it back out into the Belize Old River to continue that cycle.  But basically, they are migratory and resident birds, but the protected area is very important for its diversity and ecosystem.”