Sarstoon-Temash National Park, Belize

Background

Mangroves at SATIIM Sarstoon-Temash National Park is Belize's second largest park and encompasses 42,000 acres of diverse coastal ecosystems. It is home to endangered species including the jaguar, manatee, and neotropical river otter, among others. Its expanse is recognized as a wetland of international importance under the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, an international treaty to conserve and sustainably utilize wetlands.

In 1999, indigenous communities living in and around the park, with EcoLogic's help, founded the Sarstoon-Temash Institute for Indigenous Management. The Institute manages the park and its work has given a voice to local communities in the development of their region. The current challenge before the Institute is formidable: mitigating the impact of a new highway from Belize City to Toledo and contending with the numerous logging concessions and oil exploration permits granted in the region.

Project Description

The next phase of this project is currently being developed.

Progress

The results described below were made possible by EcoLogic's support:

  • Facilitated community-led mapping of 34 corn fields that posed an agricultural expansion threat to the national park. Agreements were reached with residents to halt expansion into the park. Efforts were made to locate suitable alternative sites and to raise yields of traditional crops.
  • Identified and halted a major illegal mahogany logging operation within the park.
  • Established working group with stakeholders in Belize and Guatemala to develop and implement a river basin management plan that pays special attention to the bi-national fishery at the river's mouth.
  • Collaborated with the Belize Forest Department to establish a permitting system for legal extraction of select species from the national park that is managed by local authorities in conjunction with park rangers. Members of buffer zone communities can for the first time legally extract these species from the park with a permit, a first-of-a-kind system in Belize of community-managed legal sustainable extraction from a protected area.
  • Initiated pilot projects for economic alternatives for seafood markets.
  • Assisted Institute's efforts in the successful legal victory that recognized indigenous land rights.
  • Assisted the Institute with successful campaign to demand completion of legally required Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) prior to oil exploration.
  • Designed and disseminated educational materials in English, Spanish, and Q'eqchi about sustainable and unsustainable fishing practices within the legal framework of Belize.
  • Facilitated workshops and meetings on environmental education and participatory planning in the communities of Barra Sarstún, Panti Beach, and Barranco.
  • Coordinated a participatory planning process for management of the Sarstoon Temash Marine Management Area.

Partners

The Sartsoon-Temash Institute for Indigenous Management (SATIIM) is a Belizean nongovernmental organization whose mission is to safeguard the ecological integrity of the Sarstoon-Temash region and employ its resources in an environmentally sound manner for the economic, social, cultural, and spiritual well-being of its indigenous people.

 

back to Belize