How do you get people to realize our natural resources are in deep trouble?
The problem, said Dirk Francisco of the Belize Audubon Society, is, “they don’t think about tomorrow.” So, overfishing goes on in Belize as it does around the world, and the delicate coastal ecosystem that supports the local economy gets closer to collapse.
If that happens, Francisco said, it won’t regenerate. The natural environment must be protected to save the human habitat. That means considering whole watersheds, entire ecosystems — not just a coral reef here, and a rain forest there.
To work on the big picture, there must be more education, said Lorena Vidal, co-founder of the Wetlands Foundation in Columbia. “Awareness is a powerful tool,” she said.
Soledad Luna Zarate of Ecuador, a marine researcher in Quito, suggested a trail along a river would be one way to expose the public to its value.
Francisco, an environmental educator, was one of seven people from Central America and the Caribbean who this summer got their feet wet in an effort to learn about saving wildlife and their habitat.
All are conservationists serving in various roles. Here, they talked with local land trust and conservation leaders. They hiked, paddled, picked wild blueberries. They toured the Medomak River watershed, seeking information that could help with work back home.
The group studied both the freshwater and tidal aspects of the Medomak, taking a boat ride from New Harbor to Eastern Egg Rock to see a puffin colony re-established on that small, grassy island. Inland, they talked with Don Grinnell, president of the Washington Lakes Association.
Liz Petruska, executive director of the Medomak valley Land Trust, screened “Wings Over the Watershed,” an aerial view of the Medomak from source to sea.
The septet of conservationists visited mid-coast Maine through a land stewardship fellowship from the nonprofit Quebec-Labrador Foundation (QLF) in Ipswich, Massachusetts.
From a base at a Rockland hotel, the group toured several land trust properties, including town-owned Quarry Hill, the Peace Corps preserve and Clary Hill, a work in progress in terms of acquiring easements.
The group met with Jennifer Atkinson of Friendship, a QLF worker who heads the Muscongus Bay Project. That effort involves loss of public coastal access, fisheries management policy, the effects of coastal development and the need for biological monitoring.
Most of all, they studied the Medomak River and how land trusts try to set up a sustainable conservation plan.
Francisco admitted that conservation easements are a new concept for him, and he saw the value of buying development rights to permanently protect natural areas.
Celia Mahung, executive director of a Belize environmental group, said she saw both strengths and weaknesses in the Maine land trust movement: “We were able to meet some of the board members and actually sense their passion for their work. People seem to be committed to conservation.”
“We can sense some community involvement,” she said. On the other hand, she said, there seemed to be “little land protected on the Medomak River, no (public) education about the river, and a lack of funding and resources.”
Mahung also said more coalition-building is needed between existing organizations. “We saw some networking but we thought it was minimal,” she said.
Vidal said she was concerned the upper Medomak watershed was vulnerable to adverse development.
All agreed, during a picnic and evaluation at Petruska’s Waldoboro home, that the visit was worthwhile and that future visits might be possible.
“It opened up my eyes,” Francisco said.