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Freshwater Focus in Belize
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Equipment donation is a small step in a long journey toward protecting rivers, lakes and reefs.
By Randall Edwards
I
t was a good day to think aboutfresh water at the Rio Bravo
Conservation and Management Area in northern Belize. In the heart of the Belizean dry season a blazing tropical sun brought the temperature to 104 F and there was little wind, making the rain forest feel steamy and stifling to people from Ohio.
A boat ride on the New River Lagoon brought a welcome breeze and a chance to ask questions of our host, Edilberto Romero, executive director of the Programme for Belize (PfB), a Belizean conservation organization that owns and manages the 260,000-acre Rio Bravo. Romero, soft-spoken and an excellent guide to the myriad birds in the trees around us, speaks of threats to the forests and to the freshwater streams that flow through the Rio Bravo and empty into the lagoon, the largest inland body of water in Belize.
Tropical rainforests still cover nearly 80 percent of Belize and are home to more than 4,000 species of native flowering plants (including 250 species of orchids) and 540 bird species. The Rio Bravo alone harbors 240 species of trees and 70 species of mammals, including jaguar, puma, river otter and tapir. It is home to 390 species of birds, a quarter of which migrate to the U.S. to breed. The aquatic systems of Rio Bravo provide habitat for at least 30 species of freshwater fishes including the tarpon.
But despite groups like PfB, unsustainable logging, farming practices, and development activities pose an ever-increasing threat to this biologically rich country.
"The farmers slash and burn the forests for grain crops, which causes sediment to run off into the streams. They burn the sugarcane twice a year, and all that runs into the rivers," Romero explains. Pollution from industries, shrimp farms and unregulated development are additional threats to Belizean rivers. "Freshwater in Belize is coming under increasing pressure and if we don't do something about it now, in 10 years we'll be in bad shape," he warns.
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Edilberto Romero (below), executive director of the Programme for Belize, keeps track of the 260,000-acre Rio Bravo Conservation and Management Area in northern Belize. The Nature Conservancy is one of many conservation groups that help support PfB. Over the past year, the Ohio Chapter has encouraged increased freshwater protection in the country. |
Trustees, friends and staff of the Ohio Chapter of The Nature Conservancy traveled to Belize in March for two reasons—to visit our conservation partners in this small Caribbean country and to deliver some laboratory equipment
that had been donated by Zande Environmental Services, a Columbus environmental consulting firm.The donation of the equipment, used to analyze the biological health of freshwater streams and lakes, is part of an ongoing effort to strengthen freshwater protection programs in Belize. The Nature Conservancy has worked in Belize since 1987 and the Ohio Chapter has had an ongoing relationship with partner organizations since the late 1990s, focused chiefly on migratory bird protection.
"The Ohio Chapter's relationship with Belize has been focused on migratory songbirds, and the birds will always be a vital link between the chapter and our conservation partners there," said Rich Shank, the chapter's state director. "At the same time, though, we want to support the efforts to protect all the important plant and animal life in Belize, and the greatest threats are to the aquatic systems."
The Ohio EPA's aquatic monitoring program is a national model for water quality programs in the U.S., and developing connections between EPA staff and scientists in Belize makes sense to Shank, who formerly served as director of the Ohio EPA.
In the summer of 2002, scientists from two Belizean conservation organizations—PfB and the Toledo Institute for Development and the Environment—visited Ohio to study aquatic biological monitoring techniques from scientists at the Ohio Environment Protection Agency and from Gerry Ioannides, the former director of the Ohio EPA's water quality lab and a partner at Zande. The experience led Ioannides to collect surplus laboratory equipment and box it up for the scientists in Belize.
"Before we went to Ohio we had an idea of what we wanted to do but we didn't know how or why," said Victor Alegria, manager of PfB's Hill Bank Field Station. "With what we learned there we were able to set up objectives and goals. We now know we want to test for sediments and chemicals from unsustainable logging and agricultural practices." They'd also like to learn more about the environment at the bottom of the New River Lagoon.
In the winter of 2003, the Programme for Belize and the Conservancy's Belize country program hosted a 'freshwater summit' for all the government agencies and non-governmental agencies in Belize.
"There has been a growing understanding in Belize of the interdependence of intact watersheds, upstream agriculture, community water needs and healthy coral reefs," said Dan Campbell, the Conservancy's Belize Program Director. "This national conference brought it all together. Among the outcomes was the recognition of a need for a national policy for freshwater and the declaration of 2003 as the 'national year of water.' We were very proud of the broad participation and serious discussion that resulted."
What happens to the freshwater rivers in Belize affects priority conservation area offshore as well, explains Maya Gorrez, the Conservancy's Conservation Specialist based in Belize. The water flowing from these streams can change the ecology of the waters surrounding the mangrove islands and the Mesoamerican Reef, the second largest barrier reef in the world. These waters are home to manatees, whale sharks, commercially important fish species such as grouper and snapper, and sport fish species including permit, bonefish and tarpon.
"These are fairly short rivers, and any impact you have on them is easily carried into the marine environment," Gorrez said.
The Ohio Chapter's support of conservation science in Belize recently received a boost from the Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation of Cleveland, which has donated $375,000 to the Ohio-Belize linkage as part of a $1 million total grant to the Campaign for Conservation.
The Smith Foundation grant will help The Nature Conservancy support land protection and increased scientific understanding in Belize and Ohio.
Conservation staff from the Ohio Chapter are planning a trip to Belize soon to help the researchers at Hill Bank set up a program to analyze aquatic chemistry of streams and the benthic (bottom-dwelling) macroinvertebrates that make up a critical foundation of the food chain.
"The Smith Foundation grant will help continue to support our partner organizations who are doing important conservation work in Belize," Shank said. "Belize is a developing country, and they are trying to protect their resources before they're gone—and we want to help them in whatever way we can."
