San Pedro Growth Hits Sustainability Questions

Concerns over rapid dredging and unchecked development on Ambergris Caye have prompted a direct response from the Minister of Sustainable Development, Orlando Habet. Speaking on the issue, Habet acknowledged that both Cabinet and the public have raised serious questions about the pace and scale of coastal projects on the island. He says the country must now confront a bigger, long-term planning challenge, one that determines how much development San Pedro, and similar communities like Caye Caulker and Placencia, can sustainably accommodate before reaching their limit.

 

Orlando Habet, Minister of Sustainable Development

“The conversation has come. Even in Cabinet I asked a lot of these questions, what is happening. To start with, we have to sit down and look at what is the long-term plan for San Pedro or even it is another community like Caye Caulker or Placencia or Seine Bight, what is the long term plan? So then, the department can look at that and say listen, we have reached a maximum number of projects in this particular area. So we cannot even entertain looking at another one. We see what is happening in areas, even the new areas, like Secret Beach, where definitely there is no planning, not only on the construction side, but also on the environmental side, even within the ocean space it is on the land’s place but the damages can reach the sea, ocean and start to affect our reef. So, we have to do that type of planning.”

 

 

Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.

 

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