Moving From Talking to Action for Biodiversity

Today, the Association of Protected Areas Management Organization, APAMO, gathered its members and partner organizations to participate in a biodiversity conference with the goal of moving away from just discussing threats to the environment and towards taking actions to implement solutions. Partnering with APAMO was the British High Commission and the B.T.B., to fund the initiatives that will come out of today’s events. We spoke with the Executive Director of APAMO, Jose Perez, for more information. 

 

Jose Perez, Executive Director, APAMO

“Today we’re focusing on what we call the five drivers, Biodiversity loss which are pollution over expectation climate change, invasive species, and the use of land and sea the changes. Today we brought together non-government entities academia, University of Belize is here also the private sector, the Belize Chamber of Commerce is here, because we want to move, beyond the discussion to more action the National Biodiversity Office, which is government firstly presented the national policy of framework when it comes to biodiversity preservation and conservation. And so we need to look at that, look at the actions and the gaps that need to be filled. Today we brought together non government entities academia, University of Belize is here also the private sector, the Belize Chamber of Commerce is here, because we want to move, beyond the discussion to more action the National Biodiversity Office, which is government firstly presented the national policy of framework when it comes to biodiversity preservation and conservation. And so we need to look at that, look at the actions and the gaps that need to be filled. But very importantly, today we want everybody to be on the same page to understand what is biodiversity.  And what do we lose when we have constant devastation, when we have the constant impact of climate change, which are already seen on the natural resources on the whole. And we want to reflect or we want them to reflect on, as our own organization, what can we do  to mitigate the impacts of these five drivers. And so that’s it, that’s the conversation we want to have. And by the end of the day, we’re hoping that Identify some concrete actions moving forward to address this major issue.”