Placencia Beach Erosion Threatens Belize’s Beloved Tourist Spot

The ongoing erosion of Placencia beach has sparked concern among the community, leading to discussions on how to tackle the problem before the popular tourist spot loses its entire beachfront. The Ministries of Natural Resources, Sustainable Development, and Infrastructure Development recently met with Placencia residents to address the issue. News Five’s Marion Ali spoke with Brice Dial, the Placencia Village Council Secretary, and Albert Loewen, a property owner, who explained the plan to move forward. Here’s the report.

 

Marion Ali, Reporting

In March, several Placencia residents gathered at the beach to remove rocks that had been piled up in front of private property as a form of protection. The property owner, worried about erosion on his beachfront, had built the rock wall to preserve the area. However, environmental research shows that these rock walls cause erosion at other beachfront properties further south on the peninsula. Erosion has been a problem in Placencia for a while now. Brice Dial, Secretary of the Placencia Village Council, says that progress in one part of the area has led to problems for them in Placencia.

 

On the Phone: Brice Dial, Secretary, Placencia Village Council

“There’s a lack of flow of sand coming to the peninsula now, partly because of extraction of material from the South Stann Creek River and diversions to the river. There has been a diversion for pumping water, for irrigation for the banana farms. So that’s one of the issues.”

 

The erosion problem worsened for Placencia residents living south of the peninsula because those living to the north placed rocks on the beach in front of their homes to protect their beachfront.

 

On the Phone: Brice Dial

“If every single property owner along the coast is capturing sand, at some point there is going to be no sand moving down south, which is basically where we’re at right now. So that natural replenishment that used to happen isn’t happening, and we had a scientist here working along with a group called Strong Coast, and that scientist gathered data of the entire peninsula. And there was a meeting, I think it’s going on two weeks now. He said in the meeting, he’s a specialist with coastal erosion. He said that approach is not something that is recommended by the experts. It just fixes the immediate problem in front of a property, but overall it causes more damage than good.”

 

A Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of South Florida recently conducted a project in Placencia. She also weighed in on the erosion issue and shared Dr. Ping Wang’s suggestions from a community meeting on the topic.

 

Maya Trotz, Professor, Environmental Engineering, University of South Florida

“The question for here is, I think, do you go through that process of doing the rocks and the sea walls and then learning two decades later that you know, there is another way to do this? Or do you start sort of testing and doing some pilots on what beach nourishment might look like, coupled with many other things, so coupled with beach nourishment, but maybe coupled with adding more vegetation, so that you have some sort of dunes on the beach front that can also help to hold the sand. Many people here would like to see more literal forests and just the natural vegetation come back and then on the seaside, if you nourish the beach – so this is like bringing your sand onto the beach and then it over time will naturally form with a structure that would stay there for longer. You’ll continue to have to nourish, but it’ll be a couple years maybe, and then maybe, you know, Dr. Wang was talking this morning when we passed the Placencia airport, that that has a lot of rocks. It’s important infrastructure, but also that might be an area where you could cover the rocks and make that sort of a dune.”

 

Albert Loewen lives in the northern end, in Maya Beach. He came up with a plan to solve the issue.

 

Albert Loewen, Property Owner, Maya Beach

“I already asked somebody this week if I could start with my beach if I was allowed to barge in some sand to replenish my beach, and they said that’d be a good idea to actually do a trial on my beach at my cost to try barge in some sand and see how replenishment works. So I think that’s the approach and then we try to get government involved because again, Placencia generates a lot of income for Belize. The initial issue that Placencia had, they needed about $200,000 to fix their problem that they have right now, so they’ll have to spend about a half a million dollars to start with or more, but once we get it fixed once, we will probably only have to spend about a hundred thousand a year to keep the replenishment stable in on, on the, on the Placencia beach.”

 

Loewen estimates it will cost about a quarter million dollars to dredge material from the sea and fill the eroded beach. He believes this is a better option than placing rock walls along the northern end of the peninsula, which would eventually leave the entire south of Placencia without a beach. However, a recent meeting between the village council and relevant ministries has resulted in a plan. According to a press release, they are committed to addressing any human-induced factors contributing to the problem. They also acknowledge the impact of climate change on Placencia. The plan includes enforcing environmental regulations strictly against non-compliance and increasing vigilance through frequent inspections. Additionally, they will formally notify the Cabinet of the concerns raised by all stakeholders and the proposed actions by agencies to address the issue. Marion Ali for News Five.