And so, how does all this runaway and apparently disordered development in the marine space square up against Belize's Blue Bond Commitments?
Well, Belize is still telling the world that it embodies respect for blue spaces. That's what government representatives and the Nature Conservancy said at a side event at the 4th International Conference on Small Island Developing states.
We asked Habet - who is still at the conference - if there are any internal contradictions in projecting this Blue ethos:
Orlando Habet, Minister of Sustainable Development
"We demonstrated to the rest of CARICOM and the other SIDS and those other participants that that here at the meetings, how a country like ours, using its natural assets, can have debt sustainability by engaging in these types of agreements, leveraging your assets to reduce your debt, but also to have some conservation funding."
"And in our case, in additional amount of money is going for an endowment that can increase and can be used for other sources, putting some back to nature and also some of that can go back into national development."
Jules Vasquez
"When we see developments like Cayo Rosario, which have been approved which call for over the sea structures, how does this fit in with Belize's ethos? We've told the whole world that, you know, we floated this blue bond. We are in support of preserving marine environments, but the actions endorsed by the government or government agencies, certainly in San Pedro and in other areas seem to suggest that Belize in fact supports invasive extractive type development, which have a deleterious effect on the natural environment."
Orlando Habet, Minister of Sustainable Development
"We all know that national development, there are certain risks that we take. Progress, as they say, brings problems, but let's take it from the standpoint: Belize has a vast amount of land and sea in conservation."
"We need national development. Some projects that entertained by one applying for an environmental impact assessment, that goes to at least 15 professionals on the NEAC. After summary of fact report comes to them from the Department of the Environment. We go based on their recommendations."
"For Belize. I think that we have, as you know, 60% of our country still in forest cover. We have about 39% in protected areas."
"A large part of the logging comes from sustainable logging concessions. And we really have very little mining being done that will affect our environment. Certainly when a mangrove is torn down, people see it negatively. What we have to start to do now is to also ensure that these companies and these investors can also do some restoration activities and to work along with us to see how we can still have those development projects, but also be as conservative as possible."
