Last week Friday, we told you about Ministers Manuel Heredia Jr and Erwin Contreras who travelled to at the French Riviera to represent Belize at the Puerto Azul Experience Party in Cannes.
As we've told you, the Italian development company is advertising on their website that the Puerto Azul Development is a large scale, super exclusive resort intended for the Northern 2 Caye at Lighthouse Reef. Supposedly, the resort will be very high end with 350 rooms, a golf course, a 250 boat marina, and its own small airport.
But, as we've also told you, conservationists say that this proposed development is an environmental disaster. That was reiterated today by Roberto Pott, a representative of the conservationist organization, Health Reefs for Healthy People Initiative. He told us that the first he heard of the project was in October of last year, and this reincarnation of the project since that time, hardly seems more feasible than last time.
Here's how he explained it:
Roberto Pott - Country Coordinator, Healthy Reefs For Healthy People Initiative
"I have been hearing about moves to get support from the Government of Belize, and so, I am concerned that they're still contemplating a project in as large a scale as they did back in October, that's definitely not compatible with Lighthouse Reef. We also heard that they'll be bringing in speed boats, and for me that's - I mean, if you look at the habitat maps for Lighthouse Reef, you'll see that it's just littered with patch reefs. And those, we've seen, have been a challenge even for local boat captains. We've had boats run aground just outside Halfmoon Caye, and Port Authority eventually had to confiscate a boat, because they weren't able to fines. We have a shipwreck that's still a monument to our inability to cope with huge threats to the marine environment, and that happened back in 2005. Almost every agency involved in maritime protection or management was out there, and that ship is still there since 2005. So, it should be a reminder that we are not just against development; we have to be prepared to cope with things when they go wrong."
Minister Godwin Hulse, the Head of the Cabinet Subcommittee on Investment, has told 7News that at this stage, the representatives of the company are only studying the Northern 2 Caye to see if the proposed development is even possible.
Hulse chairs the Cabinet Subcommittee but two of its members Tourism Minister Herredia and Investment Minister Contreras have travelled to Cannes, presumably on the tab of the would be investors for the launch party – which clearly suggests that they support the project.
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