Various Ministries Discuss Regional Cooperation

Today representatives of the ministries of Sustainable Development and Climate Change, Blue Economy, Fisheries and Natural Resources met in a briefing session to discuss regional cooperation and the implementation of projects. Some of these have to do with the Mesoamerica Reef Project, among others. Focal points for the relevant departments and ministries gathered to get a broader understanding of these projects and how Belize can maximize its gains and benefits from those initiatives.

 

Orlando Habet, Minister of Climate Change & Disaster Risk Management

“We have smaller projects, which we implement right now, for example, in the region. We have another project, too, which is coming upstream, which is among Belize, Guatemala, and Mexico. It’s a landscape project to look at the region. Belize, the entire country of Belize is considered Selvamaya, so we’re looking at that from that perspective. But it looks at landscape, also looks at livelihoods, and certainly some areas of conservation. We have on stream a project which Belize was not directly a part of, which is the Dry Corridor project. We have been pushing as much as we can to be part of that regional project. For some reason or the other, a hundred and seventy-nine million US dollars, and the G.C.F. and Belize was not involved, but when I came into office, we found out about the project and we have been pushing to get the project. Now that it has been approved, we have been able to gain and get some benefits out of the project even though we are not part of the project per se. We have projects that are funded through G.C.F. Another project that will start is handled regionally. We have done the first phase, which was for the river. But now we are looking at the second project to be able to do that reef to reef project where we can help to mitigate the problems that go from inland into the rivers, streams and then eventually into the ocean.”