| By the end of the year Belize is expected to hit the 30 by 30 target for our marine protected areas system. This means conserving up to 30% of our Ocean Space. And through networking events like ECOLENS, which provides an opportunity to exchange information between both public and private conservation partners, we should be able to achieve so much more in terms of conservation of our natural resources. Jomarie Lanza attended the ECOLENS Summit today and here's what she gathered at the event.
Roughly 150 representatives from the government, conservation organizations, academia and development partners attended the ECOLENS Summit that was hosted by the Protected Areas Conservation Trust and the Belize Fund for a Sustainable Future. One of the largest networking events to date centered on Belize's progress towards global biodiversity commitments. The Executive director for the Belize fund explained why today's event is important to their partners.
Dr. Leandra Cho Ricketts, Executive Director - The Belize Fund
"So the ECOLENS summit is a partnership between the Belize fund and the protected areas conservation trust both conservation trust funds that have been working to support the conservation of Belize's natural assets we both support the management of protected areas and the conservation of biodiversity so we felt it would be a great opportunity to partner and showcase Belize's leadership in this area and success that the country has had so far with a focus on people and nature, how Belize ensures that it continues to preserve nature for the benefit of the people. So it is an opportunity primarily for exchange, networking and you know sharing experiences, talking about things such as enforcement of our protected areas how well our protected areas system is being managed, how we use science in that how we finance our protected areas so it is bringing together a range of entities and voices that work in the space to share the experience of where we are, where we have been, where we currently are but more importantly to kind of look ahead and discuss where it is we want to go."
The goal is to achieve the 30 X 30 target, that 30% of Belize's territories are protected by 2030. The good news is that we have managed to not only achieve but exceed this 30% target for land, but still working our way towards achieving that 30% for marine protected areas. But what will happen if we manage to meet that goal before 2030? That's one of the discussions on the table at the summit.
Saul Cruz, Director - National Biodiversity Office
"So the National Biodiversity office is an office that has been established within the ministry of sustainable development to really lead biodiversity management from a national scale and also to look at the relationship we have under the convention of biological diversity and so we are that driving mechanism behind the biodiversity strategy and the protected areas policy as well so that is our primary role within the broader landscape. A forum of this nature is very essential so it really brings national players local community groups to our big funding partners and from the policy level the ministries that set that strategic path for how we foresee protected areas over the long term in Belize."
Each entity is doing their part, but has GOB been able to identify the gaps that they can fill? We asked the minister and here's how he responded.
Orlando Habet, Minister of Sustainable Development
"Part of the problem is that these things take a lot of monies so the finance side is important but luckily we are looking at climate finance whether it is from PACT that is trying to get climate finance or looking at the national climate change office that looks at some climate finance and we have the ministry of economic transformation that has a climate finance unit and so we look at how we can bring all of it together looking at the projects that we have and as you know sometime late last year we produced out 3rd version of the national determined contributions. And so when you look at that it sort of gives you a picture of what the gap is in terms of the financing for implementation because it covers all of this we have to look at not only climate but biodiversity. Important also that we are looking at the little monies that we may have now because there may not be as much as we used to get before or as easy as it used to be to see when we do a project or a program that it incorporates biodiversity loss that it incorporates climate change and that it looks at pollution and the environment, it looks at desertification because of drought so that we might not have monies for each one but a program that can look and touch on all of these, of these areas." | 