Question on Water Temp

[peterbj7]

Back on the original question, yesterday I dived on a wreck 140ft down in the ancient river bed of the Belize River some miles off Belize City. I recorded 85f at the bottom. Not that we found the wreck, but a 140ft mud dive was at least reminiscent of diving around Britain!

 

[cyberdyver]

Not too many people care about ecology but Belize is overfishing its lobsters very heavily. Enforcement of existing laws is lax, fishermen commonly catch juvenilles and cut them into pieces to sell on the black market, there is no limit on how many lobsters a fisherman can catch at a time, they can use an unlimited number of traps, they can catch at night if they want (when all the lobsters are out) , the hook stick fishermen oftentimes break and turn over corals while trying to catch a lobster, and Belize has an extremely long season open for lobster of 8 months which is ridiculous. Belize lobster fishermen are prepared to hunt lobster to shallow water extinction (deep water lobsters will survive because it is illegal to scuba dive and hunt lobster, although some lobster fishermen do it). The fewer there are, the higher the market price will be and the more thoroughly they will be hunted commensurate with the incentive.

The Lobsterfest is all good and fun for some people but it is just fiddling while Rome burns as far as the lobsters are concerned. The cultural patrimony of Belize and its fishing traditions is now long gone since commercialization of fishing is the norm today. The little local guy who just feeds his family has taken a back seat to the guy with a thousand traps and a fleet of six boats with ten to fifteen guys on his payroll.

People who scuba dive should actually want to see an abundance of marine life, lobster included, in places that they visit. There is a mentality that is hard to understand of the scuba diver who does not care what people do to their reefs as long as he can see something big, a turtle or spotted eagle ray perhaps, so he can tell his friends about it back home. The reef is a very complex aggregate and the little denizens are just as important as the big ones, and can even lead to the downfall of the big ones when they are no longer there. The entire chain needs protection not a blaseŽ´ attitude of partying till its all gone because tomorrow may never come.

Instead of gorging on beer and lobster, scuba divers should stand back and lobby for more marine reserves with protected status. If one looks at areas of the world that the reef is making a comeback, they are places like Ningaloo in Australia which is a fully protected marine reserve. With all the pressures facing the coral reefs including but not limited to global warming, bleaching, sewerage and sedimentation from runoff causing algae blooms and suffocation, careless people, overfishing,and carbon in the atmosphere creating carbolic acid in the oceans which eats away at the limestone skeletons of corals, we scuba divers should all care a little bit more.

We all need to care more about our ecosystem especially the locals since we can't pack our bags and move out when there is no more money to be made off the environment. We divers need to lobby together and provide solutions instead of pointing fingers. I have had guests who refer to local fishermen as "stupid" for not finding an alternative to lobster fishing when their communities have been living off it for generations. The industry should assist with training and education to benefit all. What are resorts and dive centers doing to provide and promote marine awareness to our schools and communities? What will the dependent communities do when more areas are closed to fishing? How can we justify it when rich foreigners pay off the government to develop fragile islands, some inside reserves, covering it with the term "eco-friendly", and threaten our reef's status as a World Heritage Site. Yes we all want to see more abundance in marine life because we can cash in on it but the fishermen need to feed their families too and have some extra pocket change. Let's all think about it.

 

[peterbj7]

rich foreigners pay off the government

Not just foreigners, I can assure you. This government is as steeped in corruption as the previous one was, and I despair of ever seeing a decision made on intrinsic merits rather than because of backhanders. I could name many people in the public eye and some of the illegal deals they've made, but as that information is common knowledge yet nothing has ever happened to stop them it wouldn't help. One of the most corrupt up here is a Belizean and a very prominent member of the administration, now in a position of great power and influence. Yet he is wanted for very serious offences in at least two other countries.

Belize - founded by pirates and still run by them.

 

[cyberdyver]

AARRRGGGGHHHH! Hit the nail on the head. Guess being from San Pedro is the only requirement needed to be Minister of Tourism these days (no finger pointing intended). At least the water temperature in Belize can be relied on the be relatively warm throughout the year.

 

[peterbj7]

Lest any connection be inferred by others, let me say that the person I had in mind above is NOT the Minister of Tourism.

 

[cyberdyver]

Who would ever infer something like that. Bad people. I suspected I would trigger all kinds of whacky responses. Let's not play connect the dots and stick to informing future visitors on the beauty that lies offshore. Sugar cane season just closed and I might need a job in the dive industry sooner than later. Don't wanna scare anybody away. Peter you're a good guy, keep up the great work. I'm just the black sheep.

 

[Thatch Caye Belize]

I worked with Melanie McField and several others as the vice chairman of the South Water Caye Marine Reserve to have our part of it (the area from Thatch Caye to Tobacco Caye to the third cut down from South Water Caye) to be placed under full protection status. We worked at it for over a year and finally the ministers signed off on it in April after the UNESCO report slammed the Belize government. Now we have total protection status with no fishing of any kind to be allowed within that zone, no cutting of mangroves, and no dredging. But the government is still going to allow the first harvest of lobster here in June and July before requiring trap removal and they still have not put funding together for a buoy demarcation system. Everything is a struggle with our government. And the craziest thing of all is that they still allow complete and open fishing of the snappers while spawning in the only whale shark zone that Belize has at Gladdens Spit. Divers actually have to dodge dangling hooks of fishermen while being ripped through the snappers in a strong current so they can see the whale sharks (which feed on the snapper spawn). It is amazing to see Belizean fishermen who create so few jobs and income for Belize just gleefully loading down their boats with huge snapppers filled with eggs and at least twenty dive boats from all different areas queing up to dive underneath them. Talk about killing the goose that laid the golden egg. And Belize as a whole still sees no problem with this. Until all of the snappers are dead and gone and no more whale sharks come, then they will wake up and say that someone should have done something about it.

 

[Thatch Caye Belize]

I personally have had fishermen from Sarteneja come up to me while out at Turneffe and ask me for antibiotics to cure their gonorrhea that they caught every time they would go in after harvesting the lobster. Their wives are left with no money to eat tortillas with salt and a squeeze of lime, their houses ramshackle and falling over, and them blowing thousands of dollars of hard earned lobster money at houses of ill repute, cantinas, and bars. They would also frequently run out of gasoline (36 miles from the mainland) and come begging me for gasoline so that they could get back in to sell their harvest. That pretty much sums up many of the fishermen of Belize although the ones who can plan a week or two in advance often become very rich since Belize has absolutely no limit on the numerical limit one person can harvest of anything. If someone puts in a million traps and can actually keep up with most of them, they enjoy unheard of riches whilst the heritage of Belizes fisheries is wiped out of existence.

I have great sympathy for a fisherman who actually cares about his family and his children and wants to catch adult fish and lobsters in a sustainable fashion, but they are few and far between. And as for what I am doing to educate them, I give them Hell every time I meet with them on the high seas and lecture them about the absolute unsustainability of what they are doing. And if you know Belize at all, you will believe me when I tell you that all of them nod their heads in agreement and that the most common reply of almost every single one I have ever spoken to has been, ¨but if I dont do it, someone else will¨. If I dont take undersized lobster, the next guy right behind me will. If I dont take small conchs and limitless amounts of everything, then the next guy will.

It would be astonishing to me if Belizean fishermen did not collapse their own industry. Indeed, I used to be a fishermen in my life and I saw that it was unsustainable and so I stopped. Belize has lots of work in many other industries and although fishermen are not any dumber than anyone else and should not be accused of being dumber than others, they certainly appear to be quite shortsighted and lacking in any form of responsibility towards the future stocks of fish.

Three fishermen are actually on our committee for our reserve, however, and all three of them welcomed the reserve zoning declaration, because they saw the unsustainability of harvesting limitless catches. They also saw that it is true that the bordering areas of marine reserves actually see an increase in fish quantities and that the marine reserve replenishes bordering areas. It is only common sense that in an outlaw country that laws have to be very unambiguous and very stringent to get enforced at all.

I am a Belizean and I do not carry any other passport except that of Belize. I cannot pack up and leave and I am not a rich foreigner trying to tell people what to do out of arrogance or disrespect. I am calling it like I see it and there is nothing to be gained in supporting continued overfishing of Belizes overburdened reefs. When GM goes bankrupt, people will have to find new jobs and no one feels overly sorry for them. When Belizes reefs go bankrupt, the same will have to happen. Better that it happens before a total and extreme crash and that way Belize can save the whole other portion of its economy which depends on tourism (and especially eco tourism) before it is too late.

 

[peterbj7]

Well said!

refer to local fishermen as "stupid" for not finding an alternative to lobster fishing when their communities have been living off it for generations

"Stupid" is obviously the wrong word, but we all have to recognise that times change, and with them circumstances. What works for a small community living in an effectively unlimited resource-rich environment may no longer work when numbers of people living there have risen substantially. And I draw no distinction between people who "have always lived there" and newcomers. Those newcomers were generally welcomed with open arms for the money they brought with them, and they are just as much a part of the community as those who were there before. Anything else amounts to blatant racism and protectionism and is totally unacceptable in today's global village. I often hear people saying they were born in Belize and have greater right to the assets and facilities of Belize than newcomers. Sorry, not true. There are many areas near where I live in San Pedro that are owned by "rich Americans" and not infrequently you can hear locals complaining that they have "lost their heritage". Yet they were the original owners of those properties and didn't complain when said "rich Americans" offered to buy them at inflated prices. The old saying "you can't have your cake and eat it" applies, albeit the wording has always struck me as strange - the sense isn't.