G.O.B. Acknowledges Hard Work of Co-managers

On Thursday, the Association of Protected Areas Management Organizations, APAMO, held a press conference to voice concerns about proposals made by the Ministry of Sustainable Development that would affect the relations between comanagers and the government and how comanagers operate daily. During the press conference, APAMO members said that voicing their concerns was a necessary course of action after letters from the organization went unanswered for weeks. As a result, APAMO demanded more respect and acknowledgement from the government. In an interview with Doctor Kenrick Williams, C.E.O. of the Ministry of Sustainable Development, he told us that the government plans to deliver on those requests.

 

Dr. Kenrick Williams, C.E.O., Ministry of Sustainable Development 

“The approach that Belize have is very unique, certainly you can see that and a passion coming out in these people. It is hard work. It’s not an easy feat to be on the ground, to mobilize the resources and to protect things like research, to do biodiversity monitoring and all of that is, it’s quite expensive. It’s quite difficult and definitely not for the faint of heart. It’s no profiting venture. No. And so government recognized the importance of these agencies and these partners in co-management. Now, there’s a couple things that have been happening in the national level. As we have been looking at how do we improve the financial year, in terms of how much we need to support the National Protected Area System. And as part of the Blue Bond Initiative, as part of several of these national initiatives, we’ve been trying sustainability of this protected air system. Recent studies show that we are about at a gap of about twenty million per to mainstream, improve coordination and collaboration between government and the partners. And So, to be able to do that, we have to strengthen the systems that we have in place. We have to make sure that on the government side as they’ve been saying, there’s been a lot of weakness, and so we need to put in the systems. We need to put in the agencies. We need to strengthen the forest department. We’re creating a new agency. Cabinet In 2021 endorsed the establishment of the National Biodiversity Office. Because when we came in, we saw that there is no clear champion on the government side for protected areas. Management. There was a forest department who does primary businesses and forest management, forest concession on the extractive side. But there was nobody focusing on the conservation side and the preservation side. And that’s why we instituted the National Biodiversity Office, to help us to support and work with these co managements.”