The Be­lize Fund for a Sus­tain­able Fu­ture is pro­vid­ing a grant of BDZ$250,000 (One Be­lize dol­lar =US$0.49 cents) to the Be­lize Ho­tel As­so­ci­a­tion (BHA) and the Be­lize Tourism and In­dus­tries As­so­ci­a­tion (BTIA) to help the coun­try deal with the im­pact of the sar­gas­sum along the coast­lines.

“This is re­al­ly a na­tion­al chal­lenge or a na­tion­al emer­gency that need­ed to be ad­dressed and the board en­tire board agreed that it is im­por­tant. And we had re­cent­ly fi­nalised our emer­gency re­sponse grants win­dow,” said Le­an­dra Cho-Rick­etts, the ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of the Be­lize Fund.

She said a de­ci­sion was tak­en for the Fund to at en­gag­ing with the blue econ­o­my and the Min­istry of Tourism “to see how they can help sup­port and pro­vide some re­lief to this is­sue. “And it is, as we’ve all heard, it’s here for as long as we are fac­ing these chal­lenges glob­al­ly. And so the Fund be­yond this sup­port will we’ll be look­ing at mech­a­nisms to con­tin­ue to pro­vide some sup­port,” she added.

The Be­lize Fund has al­lo­cat­ed the quar­ter mil­lion dol­lars to­wards the cleanup re­lief ef­forts and with the BTIA and the BHA are call­ing on busi­ness­es in im­pact­ed ar­eas in San Pe­dro, Caye Caulk­er, Pla­cen­cia, Hop­kins, Seine Bight and oth­er off­shore is­lands to ap­ply for the grant of up to BDZ$5,000.

BTIA ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor, Linette Can­to, in ex­plain­ing the process gov­ern­ing the grants, said “you don’t have to be a mem­ber of any of the two or­ga­ni­za­tions to be able to get this sup­port. The cri­te­ria is that you need to be along the coast­line. You need to be in a busi­ness, an en­ter­prise that is al­ready try­ing to fight the sar­gas­sum sit­u­a­tion,” she said.

BHA pres­i­dent, Rey­nal­do Ma­lik, said the the ef­forts are to deal with the sar­gas­sum reach­ing the land.

“… once it gets to shore and it locks up on­to that beach, then your pri­ma­ry re­source is go­ing to be hu­man re­source. So we an­tic­i­pate that the vast ma­jor­i­ty of the ap­pli­ca­tions are go­ing to be fo­cused on us­ing the grant mon­ey to fund ex­tra labour “

He said mon­ey will al­so be used to buy equip­ment, not­ing that “even with the hu­man re­source, you do need things like wheel­bar­rows and prop­er rakes.”

Since 2011, sar­gas­sum has been wash­ing up on Be­lize’s shores, but res­i­dents say this year, the in­va­sion is on an­oth­er lev­el.