And one man who doesn't have to worry about any convention is Belize rural. South representative Andres Perez. Mayor Wally Nunez had stepped up to challenge him - but he was forced by the party executive to step down - along with other mayors who wanted to challenge for standard bearer positions.
So, Perez doesn't have that to worry about, which is why he's focussed on two Sargassum skimmers which arrived into the country from China. He discussed their usage and application via zoom today:
Andre Perez, Blue Economy Minister
"As of now, we have in country, at the port, it has arrived. We have two skimmers. As of now, we are just waiting for the outboard engines to be installed. So these pontoon boats that we are doing, they come with an engine machinery that has a harvester that picks up the sargassum in the water and transport it to a smaller barge to the back."
"And then the plan is to capture or to harvest the sargassum at sea. In the case of Ambergris Caye and Caye Caulker, we have the reef directly in front of us. And there are many breaks in front of the reef. And we are noticing that this sargassum tends to fall in with the flow of the waves."
"They tend to form like a funnel that come through the breaks. It becomes a funnel when it comes beyond the reef coming to the shores, it spreads. So we believe that we can capture this sargassum at sea, at the breaks, and then able to go to a collection center or to a bulkhead where we can unload the sargassum."
"So it's a pilot project. It's a novel idea, but we are going to try it. It's two of them. We are working on a price because it has been very expensive. We brought it in from China and already it's working."
"We're just having putting in the installation of the outboard engines. It's in port. So we believe that in the next two or three weeks, we'll be able to showcase it."
Perez says the skimmers can also pick up plastic garbage from the western side of Caye Caulker and San Pedro. They cost close to one million dollars.
