Belize: Land of the free by the Caribbean Sea, a land full of natural resources and magnificent views. From the Maya Mountains and pine forests of Mountain Pine Ridge in the west and south through the rainforests and fruit orchards down to beaches of Placencia and Punta Gorda. There are many wonderful places to visit in Belize, but we all share one common birth right.
Belize is a beautiful country in the western Caribbean and is the home the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef, the second largest barrier reef on our planet and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Belize is known for its melting pot of cultures, there are the Mayas (Kekchí, Mopán and Yucatec), the Garinagu’s, the Mestizos and Creoles. The land of Belize is blessed with many artifacts and history left behind from my ancestors and others that had to travel the same paths we take today to the sea. The meso-American Barrier Reef lies off the coast of four countries starting with México in the north, south through Belize and Guatemala and ending in Honduras. It is filled with a great diversity of marine life and several interdependent marine ecosystems which should be preserved for future generations of fisher folk and all Belizeans.
These different ethnolinguistic groups have a wealth of knowledge of these ecosystems that we need to use along with scientific knowledge to protect our shared heritage that is the Caribbean Sea. We want to create educational instruments to teach fundamental ecosystems conservation science to young people in a manner that will engage them to take responsibility of these shared resources on which their families are dependent. Zaida Majil
