Moon Belize Cayes by Lebawit Lily Girma
Author:Lebawit Lily Girma
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Avalon Publishing
Published: 2017-11-11T05:00:00+00:00
TO HONDURAS AND GUATEMALA
The ship to Puerto Cortés (tel. 501/202-4506 or 501/603-7787, Honduras tel. 504/665-1200) leaves at 9am every Friday, returning at 2pm Monday afternoon. The trip costs US$60 and takes roughly four hours, stopping in Big Creek, Belize, for immigration purposes, and carrying a maximum of 50 passengers. Buy tickets at the Placencia Tourism Office. Every now and then (sometimes as often as a couple of times a week), a boatload of passengers arrives in Placencia from Livingston, Guatemala, and seeks passengers to take with them back to Livingston (with an immigration stop in Punta Gorda). Inquire at Caribbean Tours and Travels (main road, tel. 501/523-3481, [email protected]).
Cruise-Ship Tourism in Placencia
In 2013 the government of Belize signed a US$50 million contract with Norwegian Cruise Lines (NCL), authorizing NCL to develop Harvest Caye—a 75-acre untouched island of mangroves and beach, just under three miles off the coast of Placencia Village—into an “eco-friendly” cruise destination. This planned development will bring thousands of cruise-ship passengers to the south, an otherwise uncrowded, pristine part of Belize.
The project met fierce resistance from Belize’s top conservationists, local businesses, and industry stakeholders, who are against mass tourism and are striving to protect the Southern Coast, as well as the country’s reputation as a leading eco-friendly destination in the region. While NCL vows to adhere to Belize’s environmental standards and to provide jobs for locals, the magnitude of the project left much to be desired: an island pier, a marina, a hub for mainland tours, a lagoon for water sports, and planned cultural entertainment using the various cultures of Belize. There’s little doubt that dredging and development on this scale will harm the surrounding coral habitat, mangroves, and the Placencia Lagoon—one of three main habitats for the endangered West Indian manatee.
The Belize Tourism Industry Association led a lawsuit against NCL to block the development, and while the Belize Supreme Court ruled in a significant decision that the environmental consultation process was short-circuited and must never happen in the future, the project went ahead. The 75-acre, resort-style cruise port was built, and the first cruise ship docked on November 17, 2016.
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