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It's Reef Week and Oceana BELIZE today organised a Science Symposium for secondary and tertiary level students today at the Bliss. There were a number of presentations about the reef, coastal zone and marine protection. The main objective was to engage students in the discussion about protecting marine life and resources. OCEANA's Marine Scientist, Dr. Isani Chan explained why symposiums matter.

Dr. Isani Chan, Oceana

"Today we have a science symposium in which we have invited several schools to the science symposium for them to have a take based on the presenters we have put together. Based of the line we have Dr. Ed Boles who will be presenting topic based on the coast line, what are some of the negative effects we are facing that related to global warming, temperature changes. We have Dr. Rachael Graham that will presenting as well - dealing with sharks. We know at this present moment we have a huge problem in regards to the extraction of different species of sharks. We do believe that during this week we are celebrating reef week. We also want the students to participate, get involved in some of these scientific projects that we have. We also, like I mentioned before, is a programme is the Hol Chan marine reserve. They have a turtle network programme. And we hope that some of the students in their area could also come onboard and participate on some of these research. I think it's one way for them to gain information and also transcend the knowledge in regards to science to our open community."

The science symposium is only one of the events lined up for Reef Week; there will be a Reef Fair at the BTL park On Sunday.