In-Depth

Marine Mosaic

Protecting marine ecosystems and livelihoods in southern Belize

Issue: Winter 2024
Author: Paige Curtis
Photographer: Jaime Rojo

After dropping anchor near a mangrove island in the Port Honduras Marine Reserve, Kylon Garbutt sets up his fishing line. A master fisher at just 20 years old, he demonstrates how to cast a fly-fishing pole with lightning speed. Islands—called “cayes” and pronounced “keys”—dot the horizon, some as small as an acre, others large enough for resorts. The shallow waters around them attract bonefish, tarpon, and permit—the holy trinity of fly-fishing.

Though he spots the telltale splash of an eagle ray, nothing is biting today. Now a boating guide at his family’s lodge, he has fond memories of fishing these waters since childhood. “Years ago, fish came right up to my boat,” he says. But in this burgeoning tourism hub and across southern Belize, things are starting to change. “The fish behave completely differently now that some of them have been overfished,” he explains.

PORT HONDURAS MARINE RESERVE | At just 20 years old, Kylon Garbutt—seen here teaching fly-fishing technique to the author—is already an expert fisher and guide.

This vast marine reserve sits off the coast of Punta Gorda, once a sleepy fishing village in southern Belize and now a premier sportfishing destination. This new status underscores just one of the many ecological pressures facing Belize. The country is an ecological gem, boasting the Maya Mountains, Belize Barrier Reef, roughly 240 miles of coastline, and an abundance of wildlife— from spider monkeys, kingfishers and spoonbills to manatees, sea turtles, and coral reefs—along with a few hundred cayes, many sporting forests of one of Belize’s three mangrove species.

Today, overfishing, poaching, habitat degradation, and climate change—the latter causing sea levels to rise along the coast, mass coral bleaching, and more intense storms—strain the resources of Belizean agencies and local groups, despite a long history of conservation initiatives.

Spurred by these challenges, the Belizean government, alongside the tourism, conservation, and fishing sectors are working to protect these rich ecosystems and the communities that depend on them with the help of an emerging WWF-supported Project Finance for Permanence (PFP) initiative: Resilient Bold Belize.

The PFP approach creates a single agreement among government, donors, and civil society to commit financial resources toward conservation goals for at least 10 years, and Resilient Bold Belize aims to secure durable funding for coastal and marine protected areas, stronger mangrove protections, and greater implementation of sustainable fishing practices in the country. The initiative will also support community livelihoods, climate resilience, and clearer rules governing natural resource use.

WWF has decades of experience working in Belize and is taking its cue from Belizean communities in this next chapter of conservation work. WWF Belize leaders like Senior Program Officer Nadia Bood are working with village councils, industry associations, and local NGOs to ensure their needs are represented in national conservation policy processes—and in the proposed PFP. “Part of what makes my work so fulfilling is that we’ve cultivated inclusive partnerships that guide everything we do,” says Bood.

In meeting with community stakeholders, one recurring need is funding to supplement the Belize government’s investments.

“I’ve worked in protected areas management for over 30 years, and the biggest challenge is always securing long-term funding,” says Osmany Salas, PFP lead at WWF-Belize. “Resilient Bold Belize,” he adds, “is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Belize to make strategic investments in conservation that will last for generations.”

Enforcement on land and sea

At the Abalone Caye ranger station, Edwin Cabrera leans over a flaming grill. Pleased with the smoky char on the barbecued chicken, he serves it up with a side of rice, beans, and plantain to a line of rangers. When he’s not serving as the de facto cook on the island, Cabrera is the head ranger of Port Honduras Marine Reserve at the Toledo Institute for Development and Environment (TIDE).

Founded in 1997 by residents in Belize’s Toledo district, TIDE manages marine and terrestrial protected areas and engages communities in educational conservation programs. This eight-room station, located in the middle of Port Honduras Marine Reserve, is a hub for enforcement and research activities. Hoping to give back to the same fishery that fed his family, Cabrera became a TIDE ranger in 2008. “Without my help, there would not be any fish left for my family, and others, in the future.”

For two weeks at a time, Cabrera and his team live at the station and rotate patrolling duties with the Belize Coast Guard to cover the reserve’s 160 square miles. Established in 2000 to protect the West Indian manatee, the reserve now includes coastal and tidal wetlands, coral reefs, and seagrass beds that serve as fish nurseries.

Cabrera stands in window with binoculars

ABALONE CAYE | Edwin Cabrera, TIDE’s head ranger at the Abalone Caye ranger station, monitors and protects some of Belize’s wild marine areas, including the mangroves and coral reefs of Port Honduras Marine Reserve.

Belizean fisherfolk generally back laws that support healthy fisheries, and they mobilized in 2011 for the rights-based managed access system in place today. But the COVID-19 pandemic—which delivered a painful wallop to the tourism industry that had helped remove pressure on coastal fisheries—and rapid inflation have made it more difficult for fishers in Belize to support their families. As a result, unsustainable fishing activities and fishing incursions into protected areas increased in the years after the pandemic. And even though tourism levels have returned to near-normal levels, not everyone’s income has rebounded.

Further, fish populations and poverty don’t adhere to national borders. “Because we’re so close to Guatemala and Honduras, foreign fishers come into our waters and break our laws,” says Cabrera. His team regularly finds gillnets and longlines—outlawed in Belize since 2020—presumably left by foreign fishers at night who are sometimes armed.

“Enforcing fishery laws can be arduous work,” adds Juliet Neal, Conservation Finance and Policy officer at WWF-Belize, noting that many local fishers want to see stronger enforcement to curb some of these issues.

But enforcement takes significant equipment and staff time—something increased funding would provide. Underwater drones, for example, already enable the rangers to search for gillnets without the use of a diver, but additional tools like long-range cameras, drones, and radar systems would help them monitor suspicious activity from farther away. Working in a humid marine environment is harsh on the devices that rangers use for monitoring, with fuel and boat maintenance costs that add up. Reliable, long-term funding would help cover these costs, as would putting in place low-cost alternatives such as real-time data from satellite imagery to bolster the rangers’ enforcement work.

At sea, TIDE rangers have full rein to patrol and enforce fishery laws, but managing protected areas comes with other challenges. Alongside Port Honduras, TIDE also manages Payne’s Creek National Park and some 23,000 acres of private coastal property where hunting is prohibited. “Our private lands are scattered over five different watersheds, which makes it difficult to track what’s happening from one parcel to another,” says Mario Muschamp, TIDE terrestrial areas manager.

“Photos and videos of protected areas aren’t enough to help communities understand the value of the natural resources. They want to see it themselves,” says Federico Caal, TIDE outreach and education coordinator, who regularly brings community members to the national park, extolling its importance for wildlife. TIDE and WWF also worked together to create a community ambassador’s program to enhance community involvement in the protection of the area. Now, Caal also hopes to form partnerships with NGOs in Guatemala and Honduras around alternative livelihoods to reduce transboundary fishing in Belizean waters.

For Caal and other TIDE staff, applying for grants to fund their work takes them away from the field. “Securing funding for the next five or 10 years of this work would give us the resources we need for the long haul,” says Caal. The long-term and durable financing secured through Resilient Bold Belize would cover the basic operating costs of these protected areas, so managers can spend their time where it matters.

DANGRIGA | Fisher Veronica Tun and her dog Angel stand in her recently flooded yard amid nearby mangroves and the Caribbean Sea.

A fishery in peril

For fisherfolk like Veronica Tun, the end of a long stint at sea is marked by a visit to the fish market. At the mouth of the North Stann Creek River in Dangriga, Tun offloads her catch to be cleaned and resold to local buyers. The market stand is a bustling scene of fishers docking their skiffs and shucking fish scales.

While Tun peruses the coolers holding the day’s catch, her eyes stop short. There, among mainstays like snapper and grunt, is a juvenile shark. Caribbean shark species are endangered and forbidden from commercial sales by the Belize Fisheries Department. “At the end of the day, people are hungry,” says the man cleaning her fish. “I won’t turn customers away.” For Tun, it’s a devastating sight, and shows the gap between policies and realities on the ground.

Tun, a Dangriga resident and full-time fisher, never saw herself fishing on the high seas. “When I caught my first fish, I jumped with excitement and almost fell out of the boat,” she shares, recalling the first time her partner, David Elijio, introduced her to fishing. Twenty years later, Elijio and Tun sail out on their boat, Breadwinner, almost daily. She and Elijio typically depart for Glover’s Reef just after dawn, sleeping on their boat overnight and storing their catch in ice-packed coolers.

“Resilient Bold Belize will allow us to have longer-term conservation planning, address livelihood issues, strengthen institutions, and achieve finance permanence. It is a coordinated and integrated process—with government and all users of the resources—to secure a brighter future.”
BEVERLY WADE
Director, Blue Bond and Finance Permanence Unit, Office of the Prime Minister, Belize

Fishing provided Tun with a home and the funds to send her son to high school. “But I don’t know if I want my son to be a fisherman,” she says, referring to hazards of the job: sea storms, piracy, and competition with illegal fishers. Stronger prosecution of illegal activities and more frequent and regular ranger patrols would make Tun feel safer at sea, but fishing will always be unpredictable—especially in warming oceans.

“In recent years, we’ve had to venture farther out at sea and deeper into the reef to catch enough fish to recoup our costs,” says Tun. When rising ocean temperatures put stress on coral reefs—and even cause mass bleaching events and die-offs, fisheries hurt, too. Resilient Bold Belize hopes to respond to these threats head-on through the development and implementation of a climate-smart conservation plan for Belize’s coastal and marine protected areas.

Tun also believes that climate change presents an opportunity for fisherfolk to model sustainable practices in the industry. As the board treasurer of the Wabafu Fishermen’s Association, Tun meets with other fishers around the country to exchange knowledge and build support for ocean-friendly livelihood ventures, among them: seaweed farming.

Hoping to capitalize on the growing demand for seaweed in the food and pharmaceutical sector, Louis Godfrey started his first seaweed plot in 2006. He took up seaweed farming to earn additional income alongside fishing and working as a boating guide. Because the seaweed industry is so new, the fisheries department has yet to offer licenses for seaweed production, which makes it a risky, albeit profitable, business. “If someone stole my seaweed crop, I would have no recourse, because technically I don’t have rights to farm in the ocean,” says Godfrey. Instead, intrepid farmers like him pay for costly ocean research licenses, operating their businesses discreetly.

The seaweed varieties that Godfrey grows act as underwater forests, sequestering carbon and providing habitat for fish. When ocean temperatures get too warm, Godfrey moves his vertical plot to deeper, cooler waters. Resilient Bold Belize intends to establish the right policies to nurture alternative livelihoods that protect and restore functional ecological systems—and climate-proof seaweed farming might just be one that helps diversify peoples’ options for making a living on the coast.

PAYNE’S CREEK NATIONAL PARK

The magic of mangroves

Just after sunrise, the tranquil waters of Placencia Lagoon begin to come alive. Squawks and splashes arise, and a great blue heron perches on the roots of a red mangrove in the distance. Elizabeth Avila Muschamp marvels at the large bird, known for its reliance on the fish spawned in the lagoon. This narrow estuary, which separates the Placencia peninsula from the marshy mainland, is home to remarkable biodiversity. Over 300 species of birds have been spotted here, along with jaguars, manatees, dolphins, sharks, and multiple sea turtle species, including loggerheads and critically endangered hawksbills. The lagoon is lined with lush red, black, and white mangroves that stabilize shorelines, offer resistance to storm surges, store carbon, and support a wide array of marine species.

Avila Muschamp is the executive director of the Southern Environmental Association (SEA), a community-focused conservation organization that comanages marine protected areas in southern Belize. Despite its ecological richness, Placencia Lagoon is not yet a designated protected area, but WWF and the Belizean government, along with SEA and other conservation groups like the Crocodile Research Coalition, are hoping to change that.

“Placencia Lagoon is a sanctuary for so many species, but it’s not technically under our jurisdiction,” says Avila Muschamp. “So, we can’t patrol for violations like in other protected areas.” Though it is illegal to remove mangroves without proper permitting, many are clear-cut anyway for new hotels or vacation homes, putting the country’s mangrove forests at risk of deforestation.

Resilient Bold Belize and WWF share a goal in Placencia Lagoon—to support management of the small but rich waterway as part of Belize’s system of protected areas. And while WWF is already working with the Belize Forest Department to educate and engage developers and the public, formal protection could do more. Under a more formal designation, the lagoon’s vital mangrove system and its diverse wildlife would be protected from encroaching development, protecting nearby communities from stronger storms and rising seas and helping them bounce back when the skies clear.

PLACENCIA LAGOON | Dr. Marisa Tellez, who leads the Crocodile Research Coalition in Placencia, carefully navigates a maze of interconnected mangrove roots.

Culture and conservation

While about half of Belize’s population lives along the coast, many inland communities aren’t as connected to the water as fisherfolk and rangers. “Inland communities often say, ‘You can’t eat mangroves,’” Neal says. Still, food might just be the thread that connects all Belizeans to both the land and the sea.

Chef Sean Kuylen understands that connection and believes that the hospitality industry has a responsibility to protect these ecosystems.

“Whether it’s the tourism coming for Belize’s biodiverse reefs or the fish that are a staple of people’s diets, healthy coastal and marine ecosystems are the foundation of human well-being and economic security for Belize. The GEF supports Resilient Bold Belize because it is a strategy to channel money and resources generated by nature back to its long-term protection.”
CARLOS MANUEL RODRÍGUEZ
CEO and chairperson, Global Environment Facility, which enables developing countries to work toward international environmental goals

“What makes Belizean food so special is the freshness, because we cook with the seasons,” says Kuylen. Also known as the “No Barcode Chef,” he cooks exclusively with local ingredients to draw attention to the richness of Belize’s Garifuna foodways. The Garifuna people are the descendants of Afro-Indigenous communities exiled from the Caribbean island of St. Vincent in the 18th century and are celebrated for their strong fishing and farming traditions as well as their African musical heritage.

The day before Garifuna Settlement Day, a public holiday honoring the arrival of Garifuna people to southern Belize, Kuylen dashes around the kitchen of Pelican Beach Resort. He’s demonstrating how to make hudut, a traditional Garifuna meal best described as “Belize on a plate.”

After pounding boiled plantain into a doughy fufu, he sautés a fresh mullet snapper on the nearest burner. With the ease of an orchestra conductor, he grinds coconut pulp to make fresh milk, which he eventually pours over the finished snapper. The snapper dish, served with fufu and some cassava bread, is a brilliant marriage of terrestrial and marine.

The following day, the celebration culminates with a parade of boats adorned with medicinal plants, cassava leaves, and the Garifuna flag sailing into the North Stann Creek River. Every restaurant is serving their version of hudut and other seafood dishes to crowds of Belizeans and foreign tourists visiting for the festivities.

The culture of southern Belize is a unique blend of bold flavors, vast natural treasures, diverse wildlife, and a long history of stewardship. “The coastal and marine treasures in Belize are like nowhere else in the world,” says Salas. “We have a responsibility to protect them.”

DANGRIGA | A group of celebrants, adorned with symbolic plants and waving the Garifuna flag, reenact their ancestors’ arrival in Dangriga, in Belize’s Stann Creek District.

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