We’ve heard more about the Oceana Foundation in the past month
than we have about any other conservation group and that’s because it
hasn’t even started up yet. Well it opened today and principals of the
international parent organization Mike Hirshfield and Andrew Sharpless set the
tone. They were followed by Imani Morrison from the Oak Foundation and Belizean
Vice President Audrey Matura Shepherd.
Mike Hirshfield, Oceana International
“The reason that I am glad that we were asked to come here and help
in helping to protect and restore the reef is because like so many people here,
I got a wakeup call and a bit of a shock last year when the Healthy Reef report
card came out and said that things were not in great a shape in the Belizean
reef as we had hoped they might be. So it is clear that there is work to be
done.”
Andrew Sharpless, Oceana International
“We need an organization that will focus on two things: focus on just
blue water marine and focus on policy and be practical about working together
with governments and policymakers, getting in place the things that the scientists
tell us and there are scientists here with us today. The scientists tell us
that are now necessary to keep the oceans abundant, to keep them productive,
to keep them a source of jobs, food, and wonderful coastal communities. Two
hundred million jobs around the world depend on an abundant ocean.”
Imani Morrison, Oak Foundation
“For those of us who know what it used to be, for those of us who,
the three thousand fishers who depend on the marine resources for their livelihoods,
their families have only known the marine resource to be filled with bounty
and to be able to provide for their homes year in and year out. For those in
the tourism industry who continue to make a living off the tours that they operate,
there is no other life that they could imagine without a healthy resource. And
when you think about those industries and you realize that it is really the
smallest of the small in our society who are engaged in those activities, we
really can’t afford to have our resources exploited to a level where their
livelihoods are affected.”
Audrey Matura-Shepherd, Vice-President – Oceana Belize
“But key to it all will be the participation of not only those in
some position, some department, some NGOs, some organizations but the ability
to bring into the fold the common man who at the end of the day are the users
of the resources, sometimes more than we do. Simply like the fishermen, the
people who live in coastal villages. Could you imagine what they go through
and if we make policies and not involve them.”
Oceana’s office is at the corner of Regent and Dean Streets.
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