While the heads discuss the Zika in Placencia, in the city, health officials teamed up with the Belize City Council for a sensitization workshop on the virus. The partnership is fitting since local government is responsible for sanitation. The idea is to educate residents on a number of issues related to Zika, including the habitat […]
An increase in the number of cases involving vector-borne diseases such as dengue occurs primarily in communities that are extremely susceptible. Nonetheless, Mayor Bradley says that the city council is strengthening enforcement pertaining to sanitation offenses. Darrell Bradley, Belize City Mayor “The message really is that it’s not a crisis. There’s no confirmed cases […]
Climate change experts from around the Caribbean region continued a two-day conference in Belize City today. At the heart of the discussions was the COP 21 Agreement reached in Paris in 2015 signed by one hundred and ninety-five countries. The agreement sets out a global action plan to avoid dangerous climate change by limiting global […]
A high-level technical delegation from the region is currently in Belize. The group is finalizing a climate change framework in the wake of the Paris Agreement coming out of the Conference of Parties Twenty-One. The delegates are tightening the nuts and bolts of that agreement with specific focus on its impact on the region. On […]
Health officials today revealed that so far, Belize is free of the Zika virus unlike many countries in Central America and the Caribbean. Samples have been sent for testing at CARPHA, but fortunately, there are no positive cases locally. The World Health Organization has declared a global health emergency given the spread of the mosquito-borne […]
A zika national preparedness plan is being rolled out. So is the Belize City Council, which acts as the body which manages any emergency within its municipal jurisdiction through the City Emergency Management Organization, ready. Today, Mayor Darrell Bradley told us that he is getting prepared, and will actively collaborate with the Ministry of Health […]
On Monday, the second Friends for Conservation and Development Ranger training program concluded at the Chiquibul. The week long program was conducted in collaboration with the Institute of Archaeology and the Forest Department, with the successful participation of fourteen rangers from FCD, four from the Forest Department and two from the Institute. This is the […]
The Fisheries Department is reporting a huge bust in undersized conch made on Sunday evening. Officers were on routine patrol in the Turneffe Atoll when they came up on the SOL, a sailboat with eight fishermen on board. Five of those fishermen, from the Sarteneja and Copper Bank areas of Belize, are in custody while […]
The timing of the bust by enforcement officers could not have been scripted better, since it comes at the onset of a stakeholder training on enforcement and compliance. Hampton Gamboa, Supervisor, Conservation Compliance Unit “We started a one week training yesterday in terms of enforcement training for our stakeholders and our enforcement agencies such […]
A forum was held this morning in Belize City entitled Fish Right, Eat Right to promote the sustainable harvesting and consumption of seafood. As the name suggests, the program aims to educate fisher folks to use good fishing practices. At the other end, it provides incentives to stakeholders who promote the consumption of legally caught […]
A program for sustainable fishing has successful completed. Pride Campaign for Managed Access was launched back in July of 2013 and after thirty months of groundwork and research in fishing communities. The industry contributes three to five percent in revenues to the local GDP; last year, a total of twenty point five million dollars was […]
Blackadore Caye is an unpopulated one hundred and four-acre untouched island west of San Pedro Ambergris Caye. Located twenty minutes away by boat, the caye is in proximity to the Belize Barrier. The island is owned by actor Leonardo Di Carpio who is planning a massive mega eco-tourism development. On Thursday night, a first round […]
Still on issues impacting the CARICOM states…the explosion of Sargassum, otherwise known as gulfweed, across the Caribbean, is a phenomenon that is believed to be a direct result of climate change. It turns out however, that the spread of the brown macro algae isn’t limited to the tropical waters of the Caribbean Sea. In fact, […]
At about one-fifty this afternoon, the tremors of an earthquake were felt in many parts of Belize and Guatemala. The earthquake rumbled in Tonala, Chiapas, in southern Mexico and registered at a six point six on the Richter scale. Twenty-two point one million persons may have felt the earthquake, including over two hundred thousand who […]
What is the state of Belize’s largest national park two years after launching an active campaign to raise awareness on the value of the Chiquibul? Today was report card day for Friends for Conservation and Development, as the non-government organization met with the media to give an update on the condition of the protected area. […]
Today at the Radisson Fort George in Belize City, OCEANA Belize held a conference to further discuss the issue of offshore oil exploration in Belize and the state of Belize’s waters. Named “The Energy of Nature versus the Nature of Energy,” the conference looked at the management and sustainable usage of natural resources while boosting […]
Cabinet’s recent approval of a policy to permanently prohibit offshore oil exploration in areas along the Belize Barrier Reef System and within seven World Heritage Sites in Belize, does not include the Port Honduras Marine Reserve, nor does it include the Turneffe Atoll. While a moratorium is yet to be formalized and made official in […]
The private sector Belize Tourism Industry Association is celebrating its thirtieth anniversary, and today members and stakeholders converged on the Ramada Princess for the organization’s thirtieth AGM. As the largest industry in the nation, tourism has grown by leaps and bounds, but while success can be measured by the numbers, there are also significant challenges. […]
The B.T.I.A. is asking government to look at some of the concerns facing the industry where infrastructure and security are concerned, but there is also the cry for more meaningful collaboration – like the kind you put in a bank account. The suggestion is for some sort of instrument which would see B.T.I.A. getting a […]
COLA applauding the government on any one thing is big. But imagine COLA commending government twice in one interview. That’s what happened today. President Geovanni Brackett and his organization led the charge for a Forward Operating Base at the Sarstoon, and the news of a groundbreaking next week is welcome. Of course, Brackett says that […]
And then it was offshore drilling, or rather the ban on offshore drilling announced by government on Tuesday. Brackett told News Five that while the government and COLA rarely agree, he can only say that the move to designate areas which are banned to offshore drilling is, in his words, an excellent start to a […]
N.G.O.s have been clamoring for a number of years to ban oil exploration off the coast of Belize altogether. One of the many initiatives includes a people’s referendum to which thousands of Belizeans signed up to disallow offshore oil exploration on February twenty-fourth, 2012. The ban at seven World Heritage Sites comprises a total of […]
Government acted following a threat to remove the system from the List of World Heritage Sites because of concerns on the sale, lease and development of mangrove islands and the absence of a framework for its conservation. That was in 2009, a year later in 2010, the World Heritage Committee told the government it was […]
There is good news for anti-offshore drilling activists and organizations tonight. A release from Cabinet late this afternoon revealed that a policy has been approved which bans exploration in areas within the seven World Heritage Sites. That’s an area totally four hundred and forty-eight square miles, but there’s more. Cabinet has also agreed to ban […]
There is unprecedented infrastructural works ongoing across the country, projects funded through the Petrocaribe bounty and others through monies from various lending agencies. It was a major platform of the government’s campaign to successfully win a third term in office – that infrastructural push from north to south, east and west…across every municipality and in […]
