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The Sargassum Task Force is now better equipped to detect, track, and monitor the spread of Sargassum along Belize’s coastline. Over the past few months, the country of Belize has been plagued with the recurrence of Sargassum washing up near the country’s coastal communities Today, the Sargassum Task Force received equipment, valued at around $400,000.00, to assist in their day-to-day tracking efforts. The Department of the Environment handed over a Drone, a laptop, and Sargassum Monitoring software to the Task Force. The donation was made under the SICA – Azul Project. Edgar Ek is the Deputy Chief Environmental Officer.
Edgar Ek, Deputy Chief Environmental Officer: “The Department of the Environment was the lead institution in developing the project concept through the Central American Commission on Environment and Development. We had initially developed the entire project components. We shared that along with the Ministry of Tourism and also the Ministry of Blue Economy and Marine Conservation and based on their inputs we made that submission to the Central American Commission on Environment to approve the project and the project is being funded by the government of Taiwan. The project has two components. One dealing with sargassum and the other component is dealing with reduction of pollution from single-use plastics and other waste. The total project is I think around 190,000 US dollars, 80 % of the budget is for sargasso management.”
We also spoke with the Secretary of the Sargassum Task Force, Darcy Correa, who explained how the task force plans to use the equipment.
Darcy Correa, Secretary, Sargassum Task Force: “I would say that this equipment, the donation, is very helpful for the technical, I would say, people that are going to use this to assist us in the monitoring even like how Mr. Chief Ronald Gordon was saying that we need to actually improve the ground truthing mechanism for us to actually use the satellite platform to verify, like for example, if we have sargassum, let’s say one kilometer in front of Dangriga. This drone will even help us to verify, of course, yes, we have this map in front of the Dangriga. So technically, the equipment will be used by the technical officers that is actually representing under the Sargassum task force. We will actually use the drone to do the ground-truthing mechanism for us to track the mats and to verify, for example, the area that is being covered by the Sargassum mats and even the direction where it is heading to.”
The new tools are expected to strengthen the Task Force’s response efforts and enhance Belize’s capacity to manage and mitigate the impact of Sargassum on coastal communities.
English (US) ·