Into Belize

Animals, Sept, 1999 by Deborah Knight

A full moon floated above the Caribbean Sea, and the sand flies attacked as we donned our snorkeling gear, turned on our underwater flashlights, and slipped into the 80-degree water. It was our last night in Belize, and my 22-year-old daughter and I were in pursuit of a mollusk that only comes out at night. Our wet suits kept us afloat as we kicked along. We crossed a bed of turtle grass, where clouds of tiny fish whisked back and forth, reaching a sandy bottom dotted with sponges and corals--outliers of the reef just ahead. My eye caught movement below. I squealed through the snorkel: octopus.

It oozed along, constantly changing shape as it stretched out two long tentacles, then brought along its body and remaining tentacles. Two squinty eyes protruded from the top of the bag-shaped body. The entire animal changed color, from aquamarine to a mottled brown, with passing shades of purple. Octopuses accomplish this almost instantaneously by contracting or expanding specialized pigment cells. It slid over rocks like a viscous liquid, flattening out, shrinking, and climbing. When it worked its way between the fingers of a purple sponge, we decided to give it respite from our lights. It was we, after all, who were the strangers in this strange world.

Belize is rich in wildlife, some easily seen and some seldom seen. Sea turtles cruise its barrier reef, more than 500 species of birds fill almost every conceivable niche, and the elusive jaguar pads through its jungles. The country is in many ways ideally suited for ecotourism, and both the government and private conservation organizations see this as the way to marry environmental protection with new sources of revenue. But this marriage is not a simple one.

At the Community Baboon Sanctuary, established in 1985, private landowners in eight small villages maintain forest corridors on their land and leave food trees for the endangered black howler monkeys (called baboons by the locals) that live there. Visitors pay $5 to accompany guides to see the monkeys.

But the sanctuary has suffered setbacks. One village, Bermudian Landing, gets almost all the tourists, since it is on the main road. When we followed a guide into the woods, we discovered a swath of cleared land: a road is being built through the area inhabited by the monkey troop most accessible to tourists. Our guide blamed the road construction on another faction in the village, and--though it may not have been the reason--we never saw the monkeys.

Today there are a number of projects in Belize whose goals are similar: to inspire communities to take care of their wildlife by generating income from tourism. The nonprofit organization Programme for Belize manages the Rio Bravo Conservation and Management Area, covering 240,000 acres (more than 4 percent of the country) and offering birding and wildlife viewing. The project has been funded since 1988 by conservation organizations outside Belize and needs to begin generating revenue itself. The program has built eco-friendly facilities to attract tourists. Still, roads in the area are poor, and there are few resources to train and hire guides.

Belize's economy was based historically on logging, its population small. Most of the country's roads are unpaved, rough, and impassable in the rainy season (usually between June and August). These conditions, combined with peace and a stable democratic government, have given the country's wildlife a reprieve. When Belize gained independence from Britain in 1981, some of its first laws focused on environmental protection. An impressive 30 percent of the country is now under some form of protection.

But like the rest of Central America, Belize is poor. It has little money to enforce laws against poaching, over fishing, and illegal clearing of forests. With no funds to manage its national parks and reserves, in 1982 the government turned the responsibility over to the then all-volunteer Belize Audubon Society. Conservation organizations in the United States, Britain, and Europe have funded major projects. Still, the Belize Audubon Society now manages eight national parks and reserves with a field staff of just 22. The two newest have no staff at all.

Belize is courting ecotourists to help bring in money crucial to protecting wildlife. But how to bring in more people without degrading the very environments on which wildlife depend? And how to funnel more of those tourist dollars into the pockets of small fishermen, subsistence farmers, and rural women so that they will see it in their own interest to protect the country's wildlife and habitats?

From a distance, South Water Caye (pronounced "key") is a small, palm-covered dollop floating on the sea. Located 14 miles offshore, it sits almost atop the barrier reef. Jody and I stayed here with International Zoological Expeditions, and each day we dove or snorkeled a different site.

Belize's barrier reef runs 155 miles along the coast, the second longest in the world after Australia's Great Barrier Reef. Coming up from the first dive was like waking: almost everything I tried to remember slipped away. Few areas on earth can match a coral reef for its richness of species, their intricate interactions, and their sheer beauty.