James A. Waight Award Posthumously Bestowed on Roy Matthew Miller

The thirty-eight annual James A. Waight award has been posthumously bestowed on Roy Matthew Miller. Miller, a former Peace Corps volunteer in his youth, is known as the founder of Monkey Bay Wildlife Sanctuary. He is also known as an advocate for watersheds and environmental education. The award, named in honor of Belize Audubon Society’s founding member James A. Waight, was presented to Matt’s widow Margaretha and their son, Eli Miller. Members of the Belize Audubon Society celebrated Miller’s work at a ceremony held on Friday. Today, we spoke with Amanda Acosta, the Executive Director at Belize Audubon Society, about this year’s awardee.

 

Amanda Acosta, Exec. Dir., Belize Audubon Society

“This year, we held the thirty-eighth award ceremony.  We gave the honor to Mr. Matthew Miller, Roy Matthew Miller.  Unfortunately, it’s posthumously because he passed away last year after a health battle.  He was a stalwart when it came to conservation of water resources, one of the first pioneers in study abroad, environmental education, using education as a financial source for protected areas and he really just was a believer in community work, being advocates for people, resources, wise use of resources. So everything has its time and we really felt that it was a timely award.  We think that if Matt was alive, I don’t think that he would receive this.  He would have said that there are much bigger things happening and more important people, but it speaks to his humility and what he did.  He worked diligently, from the eighties, towards the goals of conservation in Belize.  His family was honored.  It was a bit emotional because it’s still a year since his parting and I think it was his wife, in her comments at the ceremony, made that it is for all the unsung heroes.  And I think the James A. Waight is an opportunity for people to recognize those unsung heroes.  We do know of a lot of work happening in Belize and I think every year is a case where we put out the call in October and I just sit back and say, well who are we gonna get this year?  Sometimes we are surprised.  We hear names of people we have never heard before who are working quite diligently in their communities.  But a hard choice has to be made and that’s the difficulty.”