On Thursday we accompanied the Fisheries Department and a representative from Wildlife Conservation Society on a survey of the southern cayes in the South Water Caye Marine Reserve. WCS is very involved in the support and management of the Glover’s MPA and they are now moving into SWCMR as well. Currently, they are in the initial stages of their work which pretty much involves documenting the current state of the reserve. This particular trip was intended to document structures on a group of cayes so that the age of any future construction will be known and permits can be checked. When we stopped at a caye, we made a GPS point then documented how many structures we saw, what the ecosystem looked like (we learned that mangroves are native vegetation while the highly prevalent coconut tree is invasive), and if there were inhabitants we recorded how many and how many bathrooms. The data itself was less than thrilling, but it was interesting to get a tour of the other cayes and see the wide variety of infrastructure (or lack thereof) among the various islands. Here’s what we saw:
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- Twin Cayes ranger station, which can best be described as government sponsored Lord of the Flies bunkhouse.
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- WCS rep, Julio, investigating caye ecology and vegetation.
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- A typical example of the kind of structure we encountered, called “a fishing camp” but usually abandoned and not exactly the kind of “camp” I’d gotten used to in Southern Louisiana.
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- Can’t afford an island of your own? Build one of your own out of trash and rubble, then protect it with ferocious dogs.
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- One way to solve the solid waste disposal problem facing so many of Belize’s citizens. Not so nice for those downstream though, or the environment.
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- On the island owned by the millionaire (he was at his wine factory in Spain but his staff showed us around) a close up view of the sea that you can enjoy without ever leaving your comfy armchair in the private bar. Not too shabby.
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- Next door to the millionaire’s island was a very different scene. If you can’t afford your own private island just build one on a sand bar out of rubble and garbage, then protect it with ferocious dogs that will scare off any government officials coming to ask about your permits.
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- Some of the cayes were pretty tiny, but still teeming with life, the kind of life we didn’t want to get too close to for fear of getting a guano chapeau.
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- The fisherman we encountered on Butter Caye gave the meat of this boxfish to the Roberto. All he had to do to clean it was slice open the top and pull apart the sides then grab the meat, as you can see the shell of the fish looks almost whole (if you can look past the spilling guts) hence the name Boxfish.
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- Although it sort of resembles a human trafficking transaction, this is really just Anja waiting while the fisheries guy trades gov. gasoline for fish with this friendly fisherman on Butter Caye. Not exactly sure where that falls on the ethics scale but out here everything seems to be in a gray area.
