Could Fish Skin Become Belize’s Next Big Business? 

What if the part of the fish some people throw away could become the next source of income for Belizean families? 

That’s the idea behind a regional workshop held last week in Hopkins, where women, youth and local entrepreneurs learned how to transform discarded fish skin into sustainable leather for handbags, wallets, shoes and other handcrafted products.

The training was part of the SICA Azul Project’s push to create new income opportunities from fishing byproducts and was led by Honduran innovator Pili Luna, who travelled from Honduras through the Consejo Agropecuario Centroamericano. 

“I have a patent to transform fish skins into valuable leather,” Luna said. “The process is 100% natural, and we do it in an artisan way.” 

Luna said the process requires no electricity or industrial machinery, takes about three hours a week and produces finished leather within two weeks. It all starts, she says, from “fish skin that was previously discarded”. 

Ashanti Martinez, owner of Ashanti’s Crochet Design, plans to combine the leather with her handmade bags, while another participant, Leshawn Woodye, said the training showed that fish skin could be used to create everything from clothing to footwear.

For Hally Faux, a fisher from Hopkins, the workshop changed the way she sees what was once considered waste. “All that skin goes to waste after a while because of the fillet and whatever they do with it, and as a fisher myself, I learned to turn the fish skin into leather, and now I have a short business idea,” she said. 

Agriculture Minister Rodwell Ferguson said he wants to help the women form a cooperative and access funding so they can turn the new skill into a business.  

“This is our income for them as a mother, as a wife, so I’m going to work with them for it to be accomplished,” said Ferguson.