08/18/04

Chapter One

Two remote coastal Belizean villages, Punta Negra and Monkey River Town, are positioned at a critical juncture in their history.   They are surrounded by a seemingly abundant supply of natural resources: fish, lobster and conch in the sea, trees, game animals, land for milpa and medicinal remedies in the jungle, all of which their ancestors have depended on for generations.  However, development decisions made by people outside of these two villages are increasingly influencing the fate of these resources and affecting everyday life for local residents.  Although certain measures should be taken to conserve and protect natural resources and wildlife in the area, the knowledge and livelihood of local people must be considered as well. 

The goal of this assessment was to provide an opportunity for the people of Monkey River Town and Punta Negra to voice their opinions and viewpoints about these decisions and proposed changes.  A small group of students and one professor from Pennsylvania State University traveled to Belize in March 2004 to spend several days with the people of these two villages, learning about their community organization, their desires, goals, and concerns for the future. 

Recently, a portion of Payne’s Creek National Park in the Toledo District of Southern Belize has been designated as a new “development concession”. This concession has apparently been granted in response to a group of foreign investors with an interest in creating a new “eco-tourist” resort in southern Belize. This region is unique in that three protected natural reserves converge in this area: Payne’s Creek National Park, the Deep River Forest Reserve, and the newly formed Port Honduras Marine Reserve. While formal development plans have not been made public, local contacts believe the project will include a resort hotel and commercial development on a fifteen hundred acre parcel. The plan is thought to include a newly dredged harbor facility to allow cruise ships to anchor and bringing tourists to the resort via shuttle boats to dock and shop. Tourists could stay in the hotel overnight, or take a day excursion of the area, which is known for its pristine jungles and world-class fly-fishing.

There are a number of immediate concerns raised at the prospect of a large tourist development in this part of Belize. Most important, this remote coastal region lacks much of the infrastructure that would be necessary to accommodate not only the immediate needs of the construction workers, but also the possible future tourists and the staff to support the resort. Even if the most modern techniques in alleviating ecological damage to the area were used, this project will undoubtedly impact the surrounding environment and livelihoods of the two villages located on either side of the project.

A joint study was planned between the University of Belize and The Pennsylvania State University, with The Toledo Institute for Development and Environment (TIDE) providing logistical support in the field for both field research teams. The University of Belize team collected a baseline ecological study at Punta Negra Lagoon in the Port Honduras Marine Reserve, while Penn State would do a Participatory Rural Assessment of the two villages located on each side of the designated area of construction, Punta Negra and Monkey River Town.

The aim of this preliminary field study was to get a baseline inventory of the infrastructure in the area, an understanding of how the community is organized, how residents make a living, and a basic sense of what type of economic and social development members of the community would like to see in the future.

Nine Penn State students and one faculty member traveled to Belize for ten days in March, 2004 to complete the social assessment of a larger Rapid Environmental Assessment (REA) of the project area. The REA was based on a Participatory Rural Assessment model. The Penn State team group was composed of students studying a diverse range of topics including: Environmental Pollution Control, Wildlife Science, Rural Sociology, Agricultural Economics, Landscape Architecture, and Watershed Stewardship.  Dr. Frank Higdon, a faculty member in the Penn State Community and Economic Development Graduate Program provided leadership during the field work. He conducted community research in Belize as a Fulbright Scholar in 1994-95.

Before leaving the US, the group was assigned a variety of reading and writing assignments to help them begin thinking about the Belizean people, environment, and the relationship of people to natural resources in the country.  We met as a group about once a week to reflect upon what we were learning and how it might be relevant on our trip. The field work was modeled roughly on a Participatory Rural Assessment (PRA) model--known to be a quick, reliable and cost-effective tool for community assessment. A group discussion was held to select methods that would best enable us to understand the communities: the way they live, what development issues they feel are most important, and how they interact with their environment. We chose to do a mapping exercise, some open ended interviews, and a nominal group process to gain information. 

After arriving in Belize, the group divided into two groups.  Three Penn State students stayed in Punta Negra for a few days, working with Dr. Ed Boles and a team of students from the University of Belize to do a baseline ecological assessment of the lagoon near Punta Negra.  This “ecological assessment” team was assigned the task of determining current biological and chemical conditions in the lagoon, so baseline data is available if the resort is built as planned. Using the baseline data, future groups and local residents can monitor any ecological changes that take place in the lagoon.  In addition, the three Penn State students who remained in Punta Negra interviewed local residents about their livelihoods, families, and the natural environment.  The three students talked in small groups with men and women who were considered community leaders in Punta Negra.  The interviews were often informal, allowing the students the opportunity to talk with several residents at once, and learning a great deal from their combined stories and conversations.   Residents talked about how things had changed in recent years due to increased fishing regulations, new laws affecting the use of the lagoon, the primary source of fresh water for the village people, and the devastating hurricane in 2001.  The people of Punta Negra also talked about the possible benefits of more tourists coming to the area, but realized that too much development for tourism would be threatening to their quiet way of life and their natural resources.  The rest of the Penn State team traveled by boat to Monkey River Village to stay for 5 days of field research focused on current social and economic conditions. 

The group used a variety of methods to collect data during our stay in Monkey River Village.  We found that often, the best way to learn about a place and its people is to ask questions and listen.  We spent the first two days meeting with contacts at Alice’s Restaurant, talking with the proprietor’s family, and having conversations with some of the older men in the village—often seated as a group at the local bar.  Since it was a holiday weekend, there were people visiting from other villages, and nearly everyone from Monkey River was home for the festivities.  On our first morning there, we conducted walking tours of the village in pairs, and as a group drew a large map of the streets and buildings. Once we had drawn a map, we asked a few local residents to help us identify important locations. 

TIDE had arranged for us to work with Ms. Tanisha Castro, the secretary of the water board, as our official community contact and liaison. We interviewed Ms. Castro as soon as possible, and began compiling a list of key informants. Key informants were knowledgeable residents, community leaders and elders in the village.  On our initial list of key informants, we had about a dozen members of the Village Council, the newly created Water Board, and Tour Guide Association, as well as fishermen, teachers, and long-time residents.  See Appendix C for the Master list of key informants.

Using our list of key informants, we split into two-member teams and went to talk with community members.  During the interviews, people talked about their jobs, schedules, family, feelings about Monkey River and the surrounding area, tourism, how they had seen things change in their lifetime, and what they thought would happen in Monkey River in the future.  During the interview, field notes were taken by one member of the team while the other team member conducted the interview.  We also used a sampling method called “snowball sampling”.  After every interview, we asked our contact to recommend three other people in the village they thought we should talk with in order to gain a better understanding of the place.  In the course of two days of interviews, we compiled a list of over twenty community residents, and we interviewed almost every person recommended by our key informants.

Team members spent some time each day writing in their personal field journals.  Often, important information was gleaned from an informal conversation with a local resident, and although it was not a formal interview, team members were able to learn and document a great deal through casual conversation with local residents. In addition to daily journaling, we met as a group for each meal and used meals as a time to process what we had learned during our interviews and informal discussions. These “process talks” were an important time for the group to share what we had learned with the rest of the group—and test various ideas about local attitudes and perspectives.

After three days of interviewing local residents in Monkey River, we began to organize a community meeting to take place at Alice’s Restaurant.  We invited about twenty-five people, most of whom we had already interviewed or spoken with, to participate.  Nineteen people, fourteen women and five men came.  We began with introductions, explaining that we wanted this get-together to be an opportunity for the villagers to talk about their community, things that they appreciated about life there, and things that they wanted to see change in the future. 

The first activity was a seasonal calendar exercise.  It is designed to allow people to think about their yearly patterns of activity and rest, and to identify parts of the year that may be used for working together to make community improvements, or organize development projects.  This activity also allowed people to think about how increasing tourism in Monkey River may affect their other scheduled tasks.  Four groups were formed representing the main sources of livelihood in Monkey River Town: 1) tourism, 2) education, 3) fishing and 4) farming and hunting.  We asked people to participate in the group that they felt they knew the most about.   The people in each group were given time to think and discuss important times for them, and then were asked to map these times on a poster of the calendar year.  Please see Appendices D, E, F, and G for the results of this activity. 

For the second activity, a nominal group process, those attending the meeting were split into a male group and a female group.  Each group was asked to think carefully about how they would like to see Monkey River Town change or not change in the next five years.  After people had a few minutes to write down their own thoughts, we compiled each group’s ideas together on a poster- one for the men and one for the women.   When the ideas of the entire group were on the poster, we had each person chose from the list the top three things that they wished to have happen in Monkey River Town.  Every first choice was given three points, every second choice two points, and every third choice one point.  In this manner, the items on each list were ranked in order of importance. 

After each group was done, the new tallies were added up and then the results were displayed to each group for comments. The results of both gender groups were generally agreed upon; however, the males’ choices tended to focus more upon economic and livelihood issues, such as protecting the local environment, and building the tourist industry, with an emphasis on guided fishing tours. The females showed interest in a greater diversity of improvements, mentioning issues such as building infrastructure inside Monkey River, community development in the form of playgrounds, cleaner streets, more organizations for women and youth, and the creation of jobs in Monkey River for women and youth.  Both groups agreed upon the need for a better health care program with a doctor or full-time nurse in the village year round, and most importantly, twenty-four hour electricity.  Having a constant source of power was the overwhelming first choice for both groups, indicating a strong consensus that Monkey River Town needs electricity before and more than any other improvement.  For the full results of the nominal group process, please see Appendices H and I.