Oceana Belize has released the findings of their very first Fishery Audit. It's an attempt by Oceana to agitate for a deeper discussion, which is based on scientific studies and data, on the current health of the country's fisheries stock.
For this audit exercise, Oceana retained 2 consultants: an independent expert, and a representative from Ocean Outcomes, another international nonprofit organization. After conducting their assessment, the consultants have compiled an audit that finds that while Belize has a strong foundational policy for environmentally sustainable fisheries management, it has fallen short on implementation.
In a virtual press conference hosted today, Oceana and the auditors provided a summary of the findings. Here's how the consultant explained that they had to score Belize low in certain categories because of a major lack of published information on the conservation, monitoring, and enforcement of the country's fish stocks:
So, what does Oceana Belize hope to achieve with this audit? Well, they say that although the scoring in the audit was low this time around, they hope that the audit and its importance will be embraced and that the fisheries authorities will start to provide greater transparency on the topic:
Representatives of Oceana and the consultants strongly insisted that they got in contact with the relevant government and non-government agencies that do work on fisheries in Belize, and they made a formal request for information they would need to conduct the audit. They say that they waited for almost 2 months for that information which wasn't forthcoming.
