It collects $4 million per year, and gives 60% of that back to the conservation community in small grants. Today, the Protected Areas Conservation Trust, PACT, partially fulfilled that obligation when it awarded $360,000 in small grants for 10 projects. Director Valdemar Andrade told us what the grants are for.
Valdemar Andrade, Executive Director
"We're awarding then grants today for small NGOs and CBOs. We are awarding projects for different aspects within protected areas management, from building of boardwalks to GIS work. All the grants that we give have a component that is directly linked to community and sustainable livelihoods. So it's building towards that. Additional to that we look at whatever are coming out in terms of national directive, national objectives, and be able to fulfill some of that, to be able to bridge the gap between conservation and actually putting food on the table. So basically those are key issues. To add to all of this we try to build along with all of this the capacity of the Belizean people to be able to implement sustainable development work because its not only about conserving the birds and the trees, its how do we make sure that its for the survival of human kind."
Andrade also discussed the broader issue of an environment under sustained threat.
Jules Vasquez,
We are burning at both ends of the candle and one end is burning faster than the other in terms of the volume usage of our patrimony and natural resources.
Valdemar Andrade,
"Generally speaking Jules I think we have to be careful in how we are saying that. I think we have to come back down and try to get some hard science to ascertain that that is actually what is happening. I think one of the things that we can say is that there are certain sites that are being degraded and that can be seen visibly because they are getting too many visitors over a short period of time and that can be directly linked to the cruise tourism industry in many cases. But in many cases we also have the opportunity to sell other sites, market other sites, and try to get these tourists to those sites as well so we have a more trickle down effect and a wider spread of the people over the country. I wouldn't be able to tell you at this time we are burning one end of the candle faster than the other end. I think that we have to allocate these funds wisely, that we are getting from cruise tourism, and ensure that we are able to buffer and mitigate the impact of that and make hard decisions at the end of the day if it is that we are burning one end of the candle faster than the other."
Moving along with its strategic plan, PACT is now expanding to medium and large grants of up to $800,000.
7NEWS produced for broadcast by News Director Jules Vasquez
Edited and Prepared for the internet by Keith Swift
