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In Belize, flawed conservation measures threaten small-scale fishers’ livelihoods (commentary)

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Uneven governance is wrecking the co-management model that is supposed to be the pride of Belize conservation. I’ve been conducting research on Belize’s biodiversity and fisheries on and off since 2010, but since 2023, I’ve been part of a group of researchers that make up the Belize Fisheries Project, which brings together a team of local and international experts in healthy reefs and small-scale fisheries to evaluate new and existing information and facilitate discussions about the current status and management of fisheries in the Central American country. As part of this project, I traveled to Belize in April 2024, and among the different workshops and activities we were carrying out, we decided to visit the Middle Long Cay, east of the mainland and just at the edge of the Turneffe Atoll, the largest in the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System. With an overcast sky and strong winds, we travelled southeast from Belize City navigating light blue-greenish, mostly shallow waters. An hour into our choppy ride, we passed by the Port Coral development on Stake Bank Cay, whose construction demanded the removal of almost nine hectares of mangrove forest to give way to a resort that can accommodate large cruise vessels. It remains unfinished, and it seems that the development halted because of lack of investors. A school of snapper, a commercially important fish on the Mesoamerican Reef. Photo by Francesca Diaco / Healthy Reefs Initiative. The thousand-year-old mangrove forest, however, was changed forever. The decimation of mangrove forests is not unique…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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