_{Beverly Wade – CEO, Ministry of the Blue Economy & Marine Conservation}

Re. Cayo Rosario, CEO says GoB cannot compulsorily acquire all properties

BELIZE CITY, Thurs., Apr. 3, 2025

In March 2017, Cayo Rosario Development Limited, based in Buffalo, Wyoming, U.S.A., initiated an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) review for a tourism resort on the privately-owned 10.2-acre Cayo Rosario located northwest of Ambergris Caye within the Hol Chan Marine Reserve. Apart from a 102-key hotel with an island club and restaurant, dive shop and marina on the caye itself, the project was pitched to include a controversial 90 over-the-water bungalows and 12 mangrove bungalows with a total capacity of 294 guests.

The project was met with objection from tourism industry stakeholders and environmentalists alike, including tour guides and fly fishers who rely on the caye’s crucial habitat for protected fly fish species like permit, tarpon and bonefish. Nonetheless, the tourism project was greenlighted, and a subsequent application for judicial review brought by the Ambergris Caye Citizens for Sustainable Development was unsuccessful. Despite this, the opposition to the project has remained steadfast through the years. Area representatives for Belize Rural South have sided with the conservation advocates while at the same time maintaining a hands-off stance, emphasizing the undeniable reality that their influence is limited due to the private ownership of the caye and the prior environmental approval they were uninvolved with.

_{Initial proposed Cayo Rosario development}

We checked today, and the latest available document for the project – according to the Department of the Environment (DOE) – is their October 5, 2020 Environmental Compliance Plan (ECP). It features a scaled down final version of 40 overwater bungalows with a footprint of 750 square feet. The ECP, signed on behalf of the company by Daniel Kalenov, one of its directors, also stipulated that dredging of no more than 62,000 cubic yards of material from outside the conservation zone would be allowed, as well as the reclamation of eroded and eroding portions of the island up to the surveyed property boundaries. They are also allowed to secure their property boundary “inclusive of a seawall along the surveyed property boundary….”

The activists against the project have remained on alert; and in May last year, fly fishers held a protest after seeing heavy equipment off the caye’s coast. Fast forward to March 2025, and another protest was held by tour operators opposing construction after seeing a barge in the area once more.

On Tuesday, we asked Beverly Wade, the CEO in the Ministry of Blue Economy and Marine Conservation, for an update. She described Cayo Rosario as a very emotional matter. She remarked, “…it is totally understood – something that is close to, naturally, the residents’ hearts.” However, she emphasized that it is a private island. She said, though, that the concerns of residents were taken into consideration to ensure, as much as possible, that what was being permitted would not negatively impact the marine reserve.

Wade then reported that on Monday, the DOE met with all the regulatory agencies to chart a way forward and ensure that they carry out their obligations regarding the ECP. Separately, the CEO says she expects that there will be better communication with the community and the stakeholders so “they understand every step of the way where that development is, and they have an understanding that the authorities have a presence to ensure that what is happening out there is exactly what is being permitted.” She says the Ministry insists that the regulatory agencies remain vigilant, well coordinated and transparent, and shared the view that a lot of the issues are due to a lack of communication with the residents and stakeholders.

Asked about the call that the Government compulsorily acquire the caye, as has been done with Will Bauer Flats/Angelfish Caye, CEO Wade stated, “It’s a very difficult position that the Government is in. It’s actually unrealistic to think that the Government would be in a position to acquire every area [where] you don’t want development to happen.” She says she is convinced that if the development is properly monitored, it will allay the concerns of the opponents.

In a brief release today, the Belize Federation of Fishers (BFF) expressed solidarity with the fly fishers and the concerned residents of San Pedro in their campaign against the Cayo Rosario development. The BFF is also calling for the disclosure of all documents related to the project, including the ECP and permits or approvals. We note in this regard that we could not find the ECP on the DOE website, but it was provided to us when we requested it. However, the website also indicates that the EIA was last updated on July 17, 2024; but, as we shared above, we were told that the latest ECP is the one dated October 2020, and that there was no other amendment signed thereafter.

(AMANDALA Ed. Note: Government’s Department of the Environment web site, doe.gov.bz states: “An Environmental Impact Assessment, otherwise called an EIA, is a planning tool that promotes environmentally sound development practices. It examines both the adverse and beneficial environmental consequences of a project design on human health and the natural and cultural environment…”)