How much is Belize's coastline, our mangroves, corals, and barrier reef worth? Well no one honestly knows but the World Resources Institute wants to find out. Today the institute along with the World Wildlife Fund hosted a seminar on economic valuation of coastal ecosystems in Belize. The facilitator is Lauretta Burke from the Resources Institute. She says the project has been piloted in other Caribbean countries and they hope to come up with an implementation Plan for Belize. She told us why knowing how much your resources are worth is important, especially since 80% of our coastline is owned by foreigners.
Lauretta Burke, World Resources Institute
"We're developing estimates of the current, you can call it net benefits, from fisheries, tourism, shoreline protection services, and we are looking at future scenarios. So we can look at different development plans, where different scenarios in terms of reef degradation or improvements through increase management."
Keith Swift,
Are you at all factoring into the discussion the fact that about 80% of all of Belize's private shoreline is owned by foreigners?
Lauretta Burke,
"We call that leakages. So we want to look at the benefits, the total benefits, but we also want to look at the benefits that stay within the country. So we do differentiate the two."
Keith Swift,
Are these 'leakages' a problem?
Lauretta Burke,
"It is a problem in many areas where particularly in tourism, if the tourist establishments are owned by foreigners and if the profits really leave the country it is a problem. But one also has to consider the benefits through employment to the local economy because that benefit does re-circulate within the local economy."
