Context and challenge 

Belize’s Maya Mountain Marine Corridor (MMMC) is a network of marine and terrestrial protected areas extending 1,000,000 acres (404685.6 hectare) from southwestern Belize’s Maya Mountains east to the Caribbean Sea. The area is high in biodiversity, hosting one of the world’s richest assemblages and encompassing tropical rainforests, pine savannas, coastal wetlands, coral reefs, coastal wetlands, and offshore cayes (The Nature Conservancy). 

Figure 1. Network of terrestrial and marine protected areas that together constitute the Belize MMMC (Requena et al. 2020).

The Port Honduras Marine Reserve, designated in 2000, is an integral part of the MMMC, with connectivity to the landscape through the six watersheds that empty into its bays (figure 1). Along the coastline, protected habitats include the coastal wetlands, the matrix of private protected areas managed under the Toledo Institute for Development and Environment (TIDE) and Ya’axché Conservation Trust, and the mosaic of mangrove, lagoon and savannas of Payne’s Creek National Park. The marine park itself, covering 160 sq miles (414 km2), encompasses an array of vital habitats that include inshore, patch and fringing reefs, seagrass beds and 138 mangrove cayes. These habitats fill important lifecycle needs for conch, lobster, manatee, and commercial fish species. Studies have shown that the seagrass beds, in particular, provide corridors for juvenile lobsters between habitats and important settlement areas for post-larval stages of commercial fish species. The reserve makes up a portion of the Mesopotamian Reef, the largest barrier reef in the western hemisphere (NPAS Management Plan). 

However, threats to the area are substantial, namely by overfishing, pollution from human settlements and agriculture, sedimentation, inappropriate tourism practices, and changing land uses along the coast. In addition, the impacts of climate change compounds stressors onto the system causing higher water temperatures, sea-level rise, stronger tropical storms and changes in seawater pH (TIDE). 

Approach 

A co-management governance structure allows for alignment in regional conservation, both terrestrial and marine. The large number of protected areas in the region, covering 75 percent of the landscape, creates challenges for the Belize Forest and Fisheries Departments to successfully manage and stave off illegal activities, like poaching, from the protected areas. Therefore a solution has been to partner with local NGOS and community groups for co-management (Requena et al. 2020). The Toledo Institute for Development and Environment (TIDE) co-manages the Port Honduras Marine Reserve with the Fisheries Department and Payne’s Creek National Park with the Forest Department. They also manage over 20,000 acres of private protected lands (untitled yellow polygons in figure 1). TIDE community-based management, crossing ridge to reef, provides a uniting vision and aligned action for conservation, while developing viable economic alternatives for resource extraction (TIDE).

Land-to-sea connectivity considerations help the MMMC function as an ecologically connected system and decrease the impacts of human activity on marine environments. Particularly, siltation and nutrient runoff from agriculture originating in the mountains, can be lessened when land-to-sea system connectedness is accounted for in planning and management (The Nature Conservancy). Since most of Belize’s foreign exchange is agriculture-based, adapting climate-smart agricultural practices to mitigate the effects of changing weather patterns are coupled with tactics that also decrease runoff into the ocean, maintaining financial resilience. Cacao-based agroforestry is one solution that aligns with Mayan culture and sustains livelihoods with less susceptibility to climate change while improving forest and downstream health (figure 2) (Requena et al. 2020).  

Zoning within protected areas is also used as a tool to aid effective conservation while maintaining socio-economic activities and livelihoods in the region. On land, Belize recognizes 13 categories of protected areas, each possessing policies and procedures regulating permissible socioeconomic activities depending on the level of harm that unregulated activities might inflict downstream. At sea, the Honduras Marine Reserve is segmented into three management zones; General Use (covering 95% where commercial, subsistence and recreational fishing activities are permitted), Conservation Zones (4% where “no-take” recreational activities are allowed), and Preservation Zone (the remaining 1% where no activities are permitted). Gill nets, long lines and beach traps are prohibited throughout all three zones of the Marine Reserve (Requena et al. 2020; TIDE).

Figure 2. Belize’s first cacao-based agro-forestry concession, granted to Indigenous communities in 2012 within the MMMC, on 936 acres (378 hectare), providing security to Indigenous livelihoods while protecting the biological values of the forest reserve and downstream marine reserve (Panorama).

Results

The Nature Conservancy (TNC) joined TIDE and Belize Forestry and Fishery Departments to support the regional source-to sea management approach and the strengthening of sustainable livelihoods. In addition to purchasing 4,200 acres (1699 hectares) of land for conservation in the MMMC, TNC has also created a freshwater monitoring program, tracking the contents that empty into the marine reserve, and introduced alternative sources of income for those whose jobs are no longer sustainable or legal given the protections. 

Moving forward, there is a substantial opportunity to scale up source-to-sea management models and marine protection in Belize, due to a committed debt restructuring by the government. Belize is set to partake in a ‘debt for nature swap’, an innovative program that enables the country to convert its existing bonds ($533 million) issued on the international market, into ‘blue debt’ used to implement its national marine conservation agenda. This will be accomplished with help from The Nature Conservancy, the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), and European bank Credit Suisse (The Economist).  

References 

Panorama. 2018. Indigenous Forest Conservation through Belize’s first Agro-forestry Concession.

Requena, G., C. Garcia, M. Vasquez. 2020. Building resilient communities in Belize through climate-smart agricultural practices. Parks Stewardship Forum.

TIDE Tours Belize. Port Honduras Marine Reserve (PHMR).

The Economist. 2021. Belize shows the growing potential of debt-for-nature swaps.

The Nature Conservancy. Maya Mountain Marine Corridor.

NPAS Management Plans. 2012. Port Honduras Marine Reserve. 

Cherrington, E.A. 2013. Baseline assessment of seagrass and mangrove cover and dynamics in the Port Honduras Marine Reserve, Belize. Water Center for the Humid Tropics of Latin America & the Caribbean (CATHALAC). Technical Report.