Largest Barrier Reef in Western Hemisphere – Funding Support

The Spirit of Big Five Foundation, the nonprofit organization founded by Big Five Tours and Expeditions, has joined other international groups, including Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy, and World Wildlife Fund in helping Friends of Nature (FoN) in Belize with funding support to protect the largest barrier reef in the Western Hemisphere.

The Belize-based community conservation organization has been active since 1996, and has worked to protect and manage two critically important marine protected areas in the Belize Barrier Reef Complex: Laughing Bird Caye National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the Gladden Spit and Silk Cayes Marine Reserve, a high biodiversity hotspot. In addition, through a co-management agreement with Belize’s Ministry of Fisheries, FoN is expecting to also oversee management of the Sapodilla Cayes Marine Reserve, another UNESCO site, in the near future.

The 150-mile-long Belize Barrier reef supports a large diversity of marine life and habitats, including hundreds of species of fish, and relatively pristine swaths of mangroves, seagrass, atolls, and barrier, patch, and fringing coral reefs. The reef ecosystem is under tremendous threat from indiscriminate and illegal fishing as well as land-based pollution, climate change, oil exploration, shipping, and unregulated coastal development.

What began as a grass roots organization in five local communities, FoN is now recognized as a conservation leader in the management of marine protected areas in Belize. FoN plays several key roles in protecting these fragile environments: enforce laws and regulations; and provide management presence within and beyond park boundaries; expand and establish no-take zones; conduct scientific monitoring and research; foster community participation in ecotourism as an economic alternative to reliance on commercial fishing; strengthen stakeholder local community groups; implement adaptive marine conservation management; and develop a long-term sustainability plan to help protect the second largest barrier reef on Earth.

The Spirit of Big Five Foundation’s small grant funding goes directly to support FoN’s scientific monitoring and management of the Gladden Spit and Silk Cayes Marine Reserve. These funds will be used to support ranger patrols to prevent illegal poaching within the marine protected area, scientific data collection used to carry out environmental impact assessments from unregulated coastal development, and local community educational outreach, including funding marine conservation awareness and teaching about the environment in collaboration with local elementary schools.

FoN joins a number of other projects that the Spirit of Big Five is proud to support, including Heritage Watch in Cambodia, Fundacion Galapagos in Ecuador, Blind Foundation of India and St. Nicholas Community Development Center & Children’s Home in Kenya.

The Spirit of Big Five Foundation awards small grants and makes funding donations to projects and organizations that aim to protect or enhance natural and cultural heritage and/or increase the capacity of disadvantaged communities to achieve economic empowerment. The foundation’s overhead costs are funded directly by Big Five Tours and Expeditions as part of the company’s commitment to sustainable tourism practices. One hundred percent of foundation funding goes to the projects it supports.

Valere Tjolle