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Nadia Bood, a Belizean scientist and climate change adaptation specialist at the World Wildlife Fund, WWF, has offered her full-fledged support for her country's recent law ending current and forbidding all future oil exploration activity in its ocean waters.
Bood said that her country's coral reefs present “one of the main economic generators of Belize” adding that preserving the sea area “is important from a wild diversity viewpoint but also from an economic viewpoint as well.”
In 2009, the Central American nation undertook a study which, according to Bood, stated that the coral reefs “provided the Belizean economy, as well as its GDP, with up to US$500 million dollars annually.”
The environmental scientist went on to note that the total economic amount is higher today and that up to “190,000 Belizeans are directly dependent on our reefs.”
Belize's new law, the Petroleum Operations (Offshore Zone Moratorium) 2017 Bill, aims to protect and preserve the country's barrier reef, which is the largest in the entire Western Hemisphere. The initiative was long supported by The Belize Coalition to Save Our Natural Heritage, a coalition consisting of different environmental, industry and social organizations and activists including the WWF and Oceana.
“This is truly ‘The People’s Law’. Belizeans have remained steadfast in their opposition to offshore oil since they became aware that marine assets were at risk of irreversible damage from the offshore oil industry” said Oceana’s Vice President for Belize Janelle Chanona.
The Belize Barrier Reef System is a 300km long section of the greater Mesoamerican Barrier Reef, which is the largest in the world after Australia's Great Barrier Reef and extends 900km from the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico all the way down to Honduras.
The reef is home to almost 1,400 species, including the critically endangered hawksbill turtle, manatees and six threatened species of shark, and has been on UNESCO's List of World Heritage In Danger since 2009.
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