Threatened Turneffe Atoll
The flats of Turneffe Atoll are part of the healthiest bonefish/permit/tarpon ecosystem I have ever fished. But this unique, unspoiled (and unprotected) Belizean gem is facing the first signs of modern intrusion that could lead to its destruction. What happens within the next decade will determine its future. Creation of Belize’s first biosphere reserve is critical to that future, and a vibrant Turneffe Atoll Trust will be the means of creating it.
A short recent history of the atoll puts the Turneffe threat in perspective For at least the last two decades, Turneffe Atoll commercial fishing catches, primarily for lobster and conch, have declined dramatically, resulting in the “We fish harder but catch much less” story that describes overfishing worldwide. Statistics are unavailable on the declines because Belize has not had the resources to conduct baseline studies on the 30- by 10-mile atoll 20 miles east of Belize City.
Coral Atoll
Turneffe Atoll is the largest most biologically diverse coral atoll in this hemisphere. Its diversity is comprised of (healthy) surrounding coral reefs, extensive turtle grass flats, the largest mangrove forests of any coral atoll in the Caribbean, and coastal hardwood forest. Each habitat element of the enclosed ecosystem is critical to the whole Cripple one and the entire ecosystem is affected, and possibly destroyed. But most critical of all is the mangrove habitat, the foundation for young-of-the-year fish survival.
The atoll is home to the endangered Antillean manatee, Nassau grouper, hawksbill turtle, and threatened goliath grouper, as well as healthy populations of bonefish, permit, and tarpon that have made it famous among fly fishers of the world. Its declining spiny lobster populations are heavily fished and the tails exported to American restaurants. Its heavily harvested (and diminished) queen conch are both exported and consumed within the country. Its reef fish species, also in long-term decline, are partially protected in two small spawning habitats, but there is scattered enforcement since Belize has limited resources to enforce fishing regulations on all of its coast, including its 12 marine protective areas. There is inadequate scientific baseline information on the atoll’s fisheries, including the critical habitats for each life stage of bonefish, tarpon, and permit.
Socially and politically, Turneffe Atoll has been a Belizean environmental stepchild. It had no permanent settlement, so historically it had no official political representation. When in the 1990s Belize created 12 marine protective areas, Turneffe Atoll, the country’s most ecologically pristine (remaining) ecosystem, was not included. In the past two decades, with the help of The Nature Conservancy and other environmental groups, the Belize Fisheries Department enacted modern fisheries management regulations on the country’s marine environment. Unfortunately, enforcement of the regulations is spotty at best.
The Turneffe Atoll has historically been the seasonal habitation of commercial fishermen and four fishing/diving lodges. But during the past two decades, uncontrolled development erupted, with an estimated 140 land leases issued by the government, and increasing direct and indirect land sales, in some cases on environmentally critical cayes or lagoons. Dredging operations to fill low-lying land began to impact sensitive habitats for crocodile, bonefish, coral, and mangrove. (There are continuing rumors of a large development for cruise ships on the south end of the atoll, where land has been cleared, lodge buildings erected, and deep dockage dredged.) By 2008 an estimated 50 percent of the atoll’s land had been leased or sold.
Belize has many environmental development regulations, but none specific to Turneffe Atoll. In the ’90s Belize initiated its first national Coastal Zone Management Authority and Institute, and formed nine Coastal Zone Advisory Committees, including (in 2000) the Turneffe Islands Coastal Advisory Committee (TICAC), chaired by Craig Hayes, owner of Turneffe Flats Lodge.
Under Hayes’s leadership (and significant financing), TICAC stakeholders of the atoll in 2003 created the Turneffe Islands Development Guidelines that, it hoped, would prevent the atoll from becoming the development “Wild West of Belize”—another Ambergris Caye or Placenia.
The recommended regulations included calls for protection of the atoll’s sport-fishing resources, traditional fishing rights, the terrestrial and marine environment, and promotion of low-density, environmental tourism (for both high- and low-capital investment), prevention of over-development, and promotion of an equitable land distribution/tenure system which prevents land speculation.
The guidelines also recommended that environmentally critical cayes such as Soldier, Grassy, Blackbird, Deadman’s, Calabash, and others be reserved due to their high conservation value, and that development pollution be controlled by modern environmental technology, mangroves protected under the 1989 Mangrove Protection Act, and that solar and wind power be used in addition to traditional generators.
They also called for a moratorium on the sale of small national cayes, for securing the tenure on traditional fishing camps that have had long-term and active occupation, that new leases for fishermen be prioritized to traditional fishermen, and that over-the-water (on stilts) closed structures be banned on Turneffe. Unfortunately, the forward-looking and thorough guidelines were never adopted by the government.
In 2010 the Belizean government, under encouragement from the Turneffe Atoll Trust, declared catch-and-release regulations on bonefish, tarpon, and permit for the entire country, with $25 weekly and $50 annual license fees. The atoll hosts about 1,000 divers and 500 sport fishers per year.
Copyright © 2012 Intermedia Outdoors
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