Belize sells itself as a small-country answer to a big problem: how to keep the sea alive and the people who depend on it working. The pitch is strong. A…
HOPKINS, Belize — Heaters, pumps and computerized meters rigged to an everyday picnic icebox may seem like a high school science project. But this heat stress tank may hold the…
A stretch of rainforest in Belize that allows wildlife to pass freely between protected areas is under threat of deforestation, and conservationists are scrambling to contain the damage. Mennonites, a…
Lions have been dubbed the king of the jungle, but one could argue the real royalty are the trees, the massive woody beasts that hold down the land and root…
PLACENCIA, Belize — After Hurricane Iris decimated the coral reef at Laughing Bird Caye National Park in 2001, many wrote off the UNESCO World Heritage site as a coral graveyard.…
PUNTA GORDA, Belize — Rosa Mis walks on a carpet of cracking dry leaves under the scorching sun of late May. Her green T-shirt blends in with the newly grown…
The Maya Golden Landscape in southern Belize is a patchwork of protected areas, agricultural lands and small communities, part of the greater Maya Forest, the second-largest tropical forest in the…
Protected areas such as national parks, nature reserves and Indigenous lands are the foundation of biodiversity conservation. However, climate change is threatening their effectiveness in safeguarding wildlife, ecosystem services and…
This May, divers found stony coral tissue loss disease on corals in Laughing Bird Caye National Park, Belize, for the first time. The team from Fragments of Hope, a nonprofit,…
GALES POINT, Belize — On a narrow stretch of shoreline across from the Gales Point cemetery, Jamal Galves and the rest of the team from the Clearwater Marine Aquarium Research…
BERMUDA LANDING, Belize – “About a week ago we lost a jaguar in a car collision, just over here,” says Celso Poot, director of the nonprofit Belize Zoo and Tropical…
Belize is widely regarded as a global leader in conservation, home to vast rainforests, diverse wildlife and the second-largest barrier reef in the world. The country has implemented protected areas,…
Rosie knows the Lighthouse Reef Atoll like the back of her fin. She calls this atoll home and is a matriarch of the thriving population of Caribbean reef sharks (Carcharhinus…
Jaguar have always disregarded national borders, but some threats are keeping the big cats contained within the territories that they inhabits. The spread of extensive monoculture plantations, illegal ranches, forest…
The first United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that I worked on was in 2009. I didn’t actually go but rather volunteered for Farhana Yamin representing the Marshall…
Uneven governance is wrecking the co-management model that is supposed to be the pride of Belize conservation. I’ve been conducting research on Belize’s biodiversity and fisheries on and off since…
The liana is an opportunistic plant, a vine that, in the right conditions, can smother a tree as it hitches a ride up to the top of the forest canopy.…
Suriname’s recently announced plans to sell carbon credits under the Paris Agreement's emissions trading system have been met with both applause and skepticism by climate experts. The South American country…
Foreign land developers have spent the past several years working to bring Mennonite farming communities from across Latin America to Suriname with the plan of starting a series of agriculture…
A new global analysis focuses on the climate benefits of restoring degraded forest areas instead of replanting trees in deforested areas. Researchers mapped forests worldwide to find areas that could…
Mangroves’ capacity to store carbon — up to five times more than upland tropical forests — makes them a powerful natural solution for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and tackling climate…
The conservation community is mourning after an environmentalist in Belize was killed in his home while celebrating New Year’s Eve. Jon Ramnarace, who worked on protected area patrol and marine…
Belize is an amazing country where warm, humid jungles, cool tropical rivers, mangrove forests, and wildlife abound. I am an ecologist drawn to Belize as a special place where I…
Glover’s Reef, part of the Belize Barrier Reef, is one of only four atolls in the Western Hemisphere. The rare, ring-shaped island of coral surrounds a lagoon 45 kilometers (28…
When marine ecologist Katie Flowers first started conducting research at Glovers Reef Marine Reserve, a marine protected area (MPA) in Belize, she found a thriving population of Caribbean reef sharks.…
I was quite thrilled reading Jut Wynne’s commentary on the Maya Forest Corridor (MFC) published by Mongabay on May 24th of this year. Jut described the critical importance of the…
Belize sits on the cusp of protecting the key piece of the largest rainforest preserve north of the Amazon. In April 2021, the Nature Conservancy and a consortium of conservation…
Belize, a tiny Central American nation nestled beside the Caribbean Sea, is making giant strides in its ocean conservation efforts. In the short space of a month, the government made…
An adult male jaguar nicknamed “Short-Tail” (due to his partially missing tail) was caught on camera in both Belize and Guatemala, making him the first individual confirmed to cross the…
A wildlife corridor in northern Belize has been officially declared by government order and, together with a system of three nature reserves in what’s known as the country’s “sugar cane…
According to reports, COP25, the UN climate negotiations that concluded in Madrid, Spain last week, did not yield any progress in terms of more ambitious emissions reduction pledges. But there…
In a boost to jaguars and other iconic wildlife of Central America, the government of Belize has approved a proposal to protect the Maya Forest Corridor, a key stretch of…
