- Gladden Spit, Belize, Belize, Central America
- Marine Management
- 2007 - 2009
- Completed
Conservation Strategy Fund (CSF) is currently conducting economic valuation research of Marine areas in Belize, Panama and Brazil. This work is being supported by Conservation International’s Marine Management Area Science program. Valuation of ecosystem goods and services is being carried out within three formally protected marine areas: Gladden Spit (Belize), Coiba (Panama) and Abrolhos (Brazil).
Marine management challenges in most developing countries include the combined effects of over fishing, tourism and global changes affecting the health of coral reefs and other habitats, proposals of large-scale development projects (e.g. hotels), the lack of a precise identification of user-groups, resources being exploited legally and illegally within MMA and in candidate-sites for new MMAs, incipient social organization of MMAs’ beneficiaries, chronic and endemic poverty, social marginalization of fishermen and other groups that rely on natural resources extraction, weakness of institutional structures and incentives for protected areas, drug smuggling, among others. In order to be effectively addressed, these threats need to be more deeply understood.
The studies will address three main questions:
1- What is the total economic value (TEV) of goods and services derived from a particular protected marine ecosystem?
2- How is the flow of those and other goods and services altered by the imposition of different policy regimes?
3- What is the structure and distribution of economic rents along the “commercial chain” of the local fishing industry?
Project objective:
The objective of our work in Belize is to qualify and quantify social economic values of the Gladden Spit Marine Management Area (MMA). We will determine the economic value of natural environments within the MMA under present conditions and estimate future values associated with alternative management scenarios. The purpose of the study is to aid in conservation decision-making and management. In the process, we aim to identify appropriate research methods to be repeated over time and replicated at other marine sites. This will be the first study of this kind in Belize.
Status update:
All surveys have been conducted and data gathered. Results and publications will be ready in early 2009.
Primary data gathered from all fieldtrips include:
154 household surveys
55 fisher surveys
251 face-to-face visitor surveys
130 self-completed visitor surveys
143 face-to-face non-visitor surveys
200 self-completed visitor surveys
20 tour operator surveys
Local fish buying survey and fishing characterizations
Key informant interviews and focus groups
10 months of fisheries landings surveys
In addition, there has been a considerable amount of secondary data collected on tourism and fishing in the case study village and in Belize as a whole, as well as data on the case study MPA including visitation, financial information, management actions and illegal warnings and arrests.
Background:
Background
The Belize Barrier Reef Reserve System was designated a world heritage site in 1996. UNESCO made the declaration because “The coastal area of Belize is an outstanding natural system consisting of the largest barrier reef in the northern hemisphere, offshore atolls, several hundred sand cays, mangrove forests, coastal lagoons and estuaries. The system's seven sites illustrate the evolutionary history of reef development and are a significant habitat for threatened species, including marine turtles, manatees and the American marine crocodile” (UNESCO, 2006). Indeed, the Belize Barrier Reef (BBR) contributes around 30 percent to Belize’s GDP through commercial fisheries (conch and lobster prominent among them), high-quality eco-tourism and, more recently, a boom in cruise tourism and various private sector investments for coastal development and aquaculture. Notwithstanding these values, the Belize Barrier Reef is threatened by human activities such as over-fishing, agricultural chemical run-off and coastal development. These threats have spurred a number of conservation efforts by national and international NGOs operating in the country, including The Nature Conservancy (TNC), Belize Audubon Society (BAS), World Resources Institute (WRI), the World Conservation Union (IUCN) and the World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC). Funders have included the Summit Foundation, UNDP/GEF, the Oak Foundation and Earthwatch, among others.
This work will be of relevance to four target groups: policy makers, MMA managers, local communities and academics. These will be involved from the outset, to agree on objectives and make key methodological and practical decisions, principally through meetings with Lindsay Garbutt, CI Belize Field Coordinator, and Venetia Allen, CSF's in-country principal investigator for this study. Local communities will also be kept up to date with meetings to report progress.