2022's Blue Economy Climate forum is upon us, taking place at Belize City's Civic Centre on the 1st and 2nd of December. It's a forum that's set to focus on sharing information about climate change, the Blue Economy and the fisheries and coastal zone sectors of Belize.
Those discussions involve everything from coastal erosion to sargassum and even sea level rise, while seeking to determine how those issues affect coastal communities, the fishing industry, and the tourism industry that's so vital to Belize's economy.
This afternoon via Zoom we heard more about the forum from FAO consultant Jeffy Gomez
Jeffy Gomez, Consultant, FAO
"Basically the 2022 Blue economy climate resilience forum mains objectives includes to harness opportunities of our seas lagoons and rivers in order to improve the lives of women, youth, and indigenous groups. That is one objective. The second objective is to establish a basic understanding and a link when it comes to women or gender and climate change when it comes to relations with the Blue economy, and the third objective is basically to share professional and entrepreneurial information when it comes to Blue economy sectors which include the coastal zone and the fisheries sector of Belize."
"On December 1st 2022 from 9:00 Am to 2:30 PM we will have three panel discussions and of course in the beginning we will have the remarks by the NDA, we will have the remarks by the FAO representative here in Belize. We will have remarks for the Blue economy unit which is the Ministry itself also, and then the panelist includes members of the coastal zone the fisheries department, the Belize association of planners. We have Belize Chamber of commerce, WCS, the director of women and family department within the government of Belize, we have the national Garifuna council and we have activists also in terms of human rights and also we have the M.E.T. office and basically the three panel discussions will focus on areas such as marine spatial planning, the roll of vulnerable groups within the Blue economy sector, and Blue ecconomy and the climate resilient nexus."
And the Ministry says that their event, like many at this time of the year will be raffling gift baskets and other giveaways.
There will also be live performances from TLC band and DJs Drew and Lacroix.
