BELIZE CITY, Fri. June 1, 2019– Since Belize is no longer the best kept secret in the global tourism industry, and in reality, millions of tourists have been arriving over the years, the Belize Tourism Industry Association (BTIA) has set out on a course to cultivate what is has termed “Sustainable Tourism in Belize.”

It was on the basis of that theme that the BTIA held a symposium today at the Best Western Biltmore Hotel that was attended by the tourism industry’s key stakeholders, both public and private; as well as various NGO’s and conservation groups.

The symposium got underway with the BTIA executive director, John Burgos, explaining briefly the topics that the symposium intended to cover and acknowledging the presence of some of the key stakeholders and representatives of conservation groups.

The symposium was divided into three presentations, with Burgos being the final presenter, with a presentation captioned: “Blue Print for Sustainable Tourism Project for Belize.”

The first part of the symposium consisted of a video-presentation from the Chief Tourism Officer, Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation, Abel Castaneda, who could not make his presentation in person due to a “personal emergency.”

Castaneda stressed that the interaction of people and the environment should be a key focus for the industry. Without natural resources, there is no tourism, Castaneda stressed, while at the same time he emphasized that there is tourism potential in some of Belize’s protected areas, but there has to be the proper conservation management.

The next presenter was the Supervisor of the Department of the Environment Compliance Monitoring and Enforcement Unit, Anthony Mai.

Mai, a 12-year veteran of the Department of the Environment, said that the department’s mission and policies are geared to protecting the environment, which is defined in the Environmental Protection Act.

Mai described the key tools that are used in the Department of the Environment, such as the effluent law, pollution law and the Refrigeration Licensing Act, which is one of the tourism sector mainstays.

Mai also explained the importance of the laws as they relate to development in Belize, and the blueprint for the Environmental Impact Assessment, (EIA) which Mai describes as a “planning tool,” because the department uses it to gauge the impact of development on the environment.

Citing an example of the kind of outlandish development proposal that the Department of the Environment has to deal with, Mai said he has seen projects where a developer wanted to build an airstrip right on top of the coral reef.

Dr. Craig Hayes, who heads Turneffe Flats, Green Globe Certified, presented on “The process and the 3 economic/marketing benefits of going green and for implementing best practices.”

Following the symposium presentation, the BTIA director Burgos told reporters that the project is expected to last 3 years and that, “We are going to be taking on a project that’s gonna be promoting best practices; green economy, blue economy, sustainable tourism nationally. We want the cultural change for the way business is done in Belize. We want people to put the environment first and then the economic benefits second. But it is all connected and we are going to go one step further by providing the technical support and expertise to be available.”

Burgos added, … “local reports for Belize; where we stand in terms of pollution, carbon footprint, the quality of our watersheds, the quality of our tourism products. We need to do something, we need to take action and we need to be more aggressive. We need to be able to address all of these issues with a sense of urgency because it is all connected. The environment, tourism and the people; it is one equation that involves everyone.”

Mai, the DOE representative, said that from the government’s standpoint,” … our main responsibility is environmental protection. B.T.I.A. invited us to be a part of the initiative and their goals are the same. And other key players inside the room, we all have the same vision and that is important. That was evident in today’s symposium. What BTIA is trying to do is in line with environmental protection. They want to ensure that best practices are put in place to manage the tourism sector so that it operates sustainably, and that is the same thing that we want to do. And so when they presented the activities that they want to do, I’ll be honest, some of the activities are the same that the Department of Environment has in our annual work plan. So immediately there is a link. Immediately there is cohesion and together we can move towards the same goal.”

The BTIA plan is for 3 years and will cost monies that are yet to be raised. Burgos remarked that they are expecting to start in 2020 and will attempt to secure the funding through this year.

“We are going to be using this year to secure some of the funding for the implementation. It is going to require a lot of funding, but we are going to start with the groundwork of getting partners, government agencies and other NGO agencies to be a part of it. At least in principle for them to come onboard and say we are going to be looking at policies, we are going to be looking at ways of supporting you with whatever, whether it is directly with resources or in kind,” he said.