It's gotten a yellow light from Cabinet, but developers of the reef theme park project are trying to push it to a green and today that meant talking to stakeholders. Stakeholders from the entire spectrum of those concerned with the barrier reef including tour guides and environmentalists gathered at the CZMAI to discuss the much discussed reef development proposal. Included in those in attendance was David Courtenay and Imani Morrison, two of the developers of the project that will see 30 miles of the reef put under private management as a tourist theme park. At the end of the meeting Courtenay declined comment, but we got feedback from two of those in attendance.
Melanie McField,
"We did invite the proponent of this proposed park to come and tell us what their ideas were, kind of in a conceptual frame. And then we had a open floor discussion and Mr. Courtenay was here and he responded to the questions from a number of stakeholders. We still don't have all the information but we have a fairly clear picture of what is being proposed. Its just the first step in a spate of open discussions that we want to have about the future of Coastal Zone and also about the management of the reef and the management of the growing cruise industry. And this idea of private enterprise becoming more involved is out there in a number of places in the world and certain aspects of it have turned out to be beneficial. But you have to be careful of the devil in the details and we are trying to build some foundation to eventually get to the details."
Ian Ford, Tour Operator
"Mr. Courtenay they are trying to do a business which in the end will end up cutting out the local tour operators and if we don't really get together then we will end up losing and most of the money is just going to be earned by one big company."
Alfonso Noble,
What did he tell you?
Ian Ford,
"Well basically he came in and he said about his project, and about his proposal, that its not granted or it's not a done deal yet but he wanted to do it and they are going to have environmental studies and a lot of things for it to be done in the best way. But anyway you take it, that you have 800,000 to 900,000 people come in snorkeling and being on the reef, its going to do damage to the reef."
"He didn't really explain to us his real plans for it, he just brushed the surface of it. He just said they were going to work along with Coastal Zone in making sure that everything goes right and that they get their money and he is going to pay half a million dollars per year to Coastal Zone; which is like nothing. They are just looking at mass tourism; people come in, spend so much money for the day and go out. But if you have people staying a week or two you end up benefiting more because the hotels make money, the restaurants make money, snorkel shops, and dive shops as opposed to having people come in for one day and just leave. It doesn't make any sense."
Melanie McField,
"One of the things that was the main concern of the private enterprises here is the idea that like all the private enterprises needed to be on an even plane and that's why the benefit of Coastal Zone collecting the fee and being clearly in charge of the management, to many of them, is the way to go. That was the preferred option and that was...Coastal Zone presented virtually the same section of the reef that was proposed today, part of the map had basically from the south end of Gallows Reef to down just below south of Rendezvous Caye as the extended kind of management zone and that is just about the same amount Coastal Zone had proposed last February to Cabinet. And their original proposal was that Coastal Zone should manage this area and that would include like whatever ideas were entertained by business x, y, and z and that would be kind of discussed in more of an open platform. But what was actually approved for Coastal Zone in the end was just Goff's Caye."
"If people aren't involved early on, you get very fearful and you don't know what's going on and that's rightfully so we had people from the tourism industry and Caye Caulker, San Pedro, Belize City, and we had people from the Fisheries here and NGOs and it all just came together and it was a good discussion. I think we're going have to have more discussions back and forth between these kind of groups of stakeholders and government and proponents."
Stressed was the point that the plan has not been agreed to and that there could be further discussions and consultations in the coming months.