Reef Protection Efforts Strengthened at San Pedro Workshop

On Thursday, August 21st, from 10AM to noon, a stakeholder consultation workshop was held at the Lion’s Den in San Pedro. The session was part of Belize’s Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) process under the Resilient Bold Belize (RBB) Initiative. It was sponsored by the Ministry of Blue Economy and Marine Conservation, the Office of the Prime Minister’s Blue Bond and Finance Permanence Unit, the Belize Fisheries Department, the Belize Coastal Zone Management Authority and Institute, and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).
The workshop brought together fishermen, tourism representatives, and community members to help identify key areas for enhanced protection of coral reefs, aiming to advance Belize’s long-term marine conservation and sustainable ocean-use goals.
A central focus of the program is to increase coral reef protection from the current 4% to 20% by the end of 2025. This target is part of the wider Belize Sustainable Ocean Plan, which aims to achieve 30 percent protection of Belize’s ocean space by 2026 through the establishment of high- and medium-biodiversity zones. Using maps and data, including priority use areas gathered over two years of community engagement, participants worked to identify zones for complete biodiversity protection while ensuring that fishing and tourism activities were not displaced.
Stakeholder input was emphasized as essential to ensuring that conservation measures are both scientifically sound and socially equitable. The process involved overlaying community-identified priority areas with reef health data to strike a balance between ecosystem protection and sustainable livelihoods. Full biodiversity zones, which prohibit extractive activities but allow non-extractive tourism, were prioritized to safeguard ecosystems that support fisheries, biodiversity, and coastal resilience in the face of climate change.
The RBB Initiative, facilitated by the Government of Belize in partnership with organizations such as WWF, adopts a people-centered approach to protecting the country’s coastal and marine resources. It recognizes the link between healthy ecosystems and community well-being. Participants were encouraged to take ownership of conservation efforts, underscoring the shared responsibility of the public, government, and private sector in protecting the natural resources that sustain jobs, food security, and coastal protection.
This workshop is part of a phased process that will include additional community consultations to review proposed protected areas, followed by a national validation to integrate feedback and secure broad support. The approach seeks to align ecological science with local knowledge, ensuring marine spatial planning remains resilient and adaptive.
Participants also raised concerns about the recent influx of sargassum seaweed and its impact on marine life. They were briefed on government-led efforts to address the issue through ecosystem-based management, which aims to reduce cumulative pressures on aquatic habitats and increase their resilience.
The second phase of the RBB Initiative will be a public consultation on October 25, 2025, followed by a national validation session at the end of November.
For more information, contact Osmany Salas, WWF Lead for the Resilient Bold Belize Initiative, at [email protected] or call Safira Vasquez, Acting Director of the Blue Bond and Finance Permanence Unit at the Office of the Prime Minister, at +501 280-8676.