Wild 501: How Carol Foster Defined Belize’s Wild

For decades, Carol Foster has helped the world see Belize the way we do, through breathtaking images that celebrate the country’s natural beauty. Now, her life’s work is taking center stage in a new exhibition that not only showcases her photographs, but also the powerful stories behind them. News Five’s Shane Williams has more.

 

Shane Williams, Reporting

For years, Carol Foster didn’t just photograph Belize, she helped the world feel it. Her name became synonymous with vivid, soul‑stirring images of the country’s wild landscapes and the creatures that call them home. Alongside her late husband, Richard Foster, she turned a shared curiosity into a lifelong mission, telling Belize’s story through the power of film and photography. But behind the award‑winning documentaries and breathtaking shots is a much simpler beginning, Carol’s instinctive pull toward the tropics, a desire to explore a place that would eventually become both her passion and her home.

 

Carol Foster, Nature Journalist

“When I met Richard, he told me all about Belize and he said I wanted to stay in the tropics, and when I saw Belize, I said yes. That’s where I’d like to say. And then we were passionate about the nature and passionate about each other. So it worked out.”

 

That passion would go on to shape a remarkable career that not only chronicled Belize’s ecosystems but also introduced them to audiences around the world.

 

Shane Williams

“And that passion led you to take beliefs to the world, to show beliefs to the world? Yes.”

 

Carol Foster

“Yeah. So yeah, we showed beliefs to the world and we went to many different places. So it was like a fairytale.”

 

Now, that lifelong passion is being showcased in WILD 501, an exhibition and archival project preserving decades of the Fosters’ storytelling and conservation work. Curator Gilvano Swasey says the exhibit not only celebrates their legacy, it keeps their influence alive for the next generation.

 

Gilvano Swasey, Curator, Wild 501

“ So we show one format that they had used, documenting nature and show how it can fit in many different spaces of your life. Especially, I work a lot with schools and students. Sometimes they come to exhibits and it’s just, ah, that’s nice, that’s pretty, but I want it to be able for the science school class could come, the photography class or the painting class could come. These are subject that they might want to capture. The history class, okay look at how Belize’s map has changed, where there are now conservation areas. The science class look at the biodiversity. Look at why animals are important. Look at how the landscape has changed: in the mangrove forest., the protection of the different species. We actually on the news, there’s a big story with Jaguars. They coll- they had captured a lot of beautiful images of jaguars and where the many of the animals started the Belize Zoo: protection laws being passed and then also an educational section. So there’s so many different aspects.”

 

Their influence extends beyond film. The couple also played a key role in the creation of the Belize Zoo to protect the very wildlife they documented.

 

Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education, Culture and History

“For over thirty years that wild heart has been neating in front of a lens held by two extraordinary people, Carol and Richard Foster. To many of you the name Foster with those breathtaking images that make us pause and realize just how lucky we are to call this land home.”

 

And as Carol reflects on this latest milestone, there’s one voice she wishes could be part of the moment.

 

Shane Williams

“What would Richard think about today’s presenting?”

 

Carol Foster

“He would be so pleased. I wish he was here. I wish he was here, but he would be so pleased that I’m doing this and I’m giving it all back to the country and it took me a while, but I got there.” 

 

A legacy built on love, love between soulmates, love for nature, for storytelling and for Belize now living on for the world to see. Shane Williams for News Five.

 

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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