B.A.S. & Healthy Reef’s Initiative’s “Someday is Now” video
But there’s another film to be released on Thursday. The Belizean Audubon Society and Healthy Reefs Initiative have teamed up for a public screening of the “Someday is Now” video. The two organizations joined forces for the participatory video to highlight the importance of maintaining a healthy Coastal Zone and Ecosystem, which they say are vital to the continued well-being of the people of Belize and its economy. The film which is expected to run for an hour will be showing at the Mexican Institute on Thursday seven p.m. The organizers note that there is a need for a water recreational area for the city.
Dareece Chuc, Environmental Education Programme Manager: BAS
Dareece Chuc
“Someday is Now is an advocacy video that is developed to push for a Coastal Zone Plan for Belize. This coming Thursday we are having a screening for this video and the key audience are policy makers from Belize City and other people from the Tourism and Fisheries sector in Belize City. The goal is to educate them about what’s happening in our Coastal Zone, some of the unplanned development and the need for a Coastal Zone Plan to guide development in Belize.”
Roberto Pott
Roberto Pott, Belize Coordinator & Social Scientist: Healthy Reef for Healthy People
“What you will find in the video is that it’s a really grassroots sharing of their perspectives of what their issues are when it comes to the Coastline in Belize. It covers a variety of sectors, the fishing sector, the planning sector, the urban planning, for example we look at Belize and one of the things that’s heartbreaking is that there’s no water recreational area for Belize City and most people can’t travel out to the Cayes so we need to plan as a country.”
Andrea Polanco
“So after this screening of the video, what is that you hope will take place?”
Roberto Pott
“Well one of the objectives we hope to meet is that the stakeholders will be more sensitized on how much we need to be careful of the ecosystem degradation that is irreversible and costly. We’re moving into the hurricane season and people sometimes take for granted that we have the mangroves out there but if you remove the mangroves you’re more susceptible to hurricanes.”
Pott said that he hopes the screening will also contribute to the National Plan that the Coastal Zone Management is currently undertaking along with a Master Plan Project because we are gradually seeing a rapid deterioration of our natural systems.
