For the past two weeks on 7news - we've been telling you about the condition of the marine environment in our reef beat series.
Similarly, every 2 years, organizations working on marine conservation projects come together to take stock of the work that has been done throughout the period.
Today a one day symposium was held at the Radisson Fort George Conference room to discuss and launch their 2010 report card for the Mesoamerican Reef.
Seven News spoke with Imani Fairweather, Director of the Oak Foundation in Belize - she told us what the day's agenda was about.
Imani Fairweather, Director of the Oak Foundation in Belize
"Every 2 years the people working on marine conservation initiative try to get together and asses the work that has been done and to pretty much share the report card, look at the report card to see what health of the reef is after all the paddling and activities and the work that we have been doing, at the end of the day you need to know how effective it has been and what exactly is the status of the reef. The agenda is one mostly scientific, scientist who are in the field doing the monitoring and the research, they are showing the finding so their research on a report card. There is also a number of other interesting initiatives that are being shared; one this morning was on leadership - what we are doing to build leadership from marine conservation, there is another interesting initiative that spoke about the work of the university of Belize in spearheading national research and environmental issues and helping to fulfill the university's mandate for supporting national development. This afternoon you will also hear from scientist working on climate issues and what is ocean acidification doing to coral reef, so issues that are somewhat beyond our control. Most of our efforts we do here are really efforts to make sure that we have a resilient reef but even in the face of that there are those issues beyond us and perhaps the steps that we can take on a global level to bring awareness to the issues and the plight of our resources. I think it's important for people working on the field to get together and share and reflect and re-strategize and from that stand point it's extremely important. It's also important to hear from others, where you are falling short and how you can be more effective and so it's always useful to have new people in the room and not necessarily speak to the converted and so from that stand point I think it's extremely important, its one step in all that we do, it's not the be all and the end all but it's an important step to reflect on your work."
Tomorrow, the group will be taking a field trip to Sargeant's and Goff's Cayes for what's called an Aerial Art event where a huge group will make a human formation which will be aerially photographed - and we'll show you how that comes out on Monday…
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