A TIDE Success Story

The Rio Grande originates in the foot hills of the Maya Mountain Marine Corridor. It traverses through the villages of Columbia, San Miguel, and Big Falls, gobbling up everything in its way till it regurgitates into the Port Honduras Marine Reserve (PHMR). 

Among the contents which found its way into the reserve, and we are taking about a little over five years ago, that is before the hurricane Iris, included but were not limited to an abundance of snook, dew fish, tilapia, and of course occasionally the manatee would be encountered taking a drink of the freshwater after feeding off the seagrass and others delicacies in the mangroves just off Ganja Point and a little lower down to Pork and a Dough Point where an ancient Mayan ruin lies submerged.

This is the area where the fishing family used to live on the Rio Grande and tie their Gill Nets.

On the banks of the river, about one hundred meters from its mouth, lived a family of four, a mother and her three children.  She had to feed them, send them to school, and take care of their basic needs and of course hers.  Her main source of income was fishing from the river which was only a line throw from where she lived.  On the other side of the river, lived another family and their source of income was no different from their neighbors.

Now a line is all that was necessary for one wanting to catch the fish which could be found in abundance in the mouth of the river.  The same cannot be said about the river these days but the situation is not as bad as it was before, say like three to four years ago.  TIDE’s conservation efforts and its alternative livelihood programs took care of that.  

You see, the families who lived there, near the mouth of the river actually tied their gill nets to the mangrove on one side of the river to the mangrove on the other side. In other words, the entire width of the river would be blanketed off with their gill nets.  Today TIDE is educating the residents of the communities who use the river for extraction of the resources that it is illegal to use gill nets in any part of the reserve.  The reasons for the destruction it causes to the biodiversity are more than just obvious.

Dennis Garbutt, Manager of the PHMR must have confiscated over ten nets while patrolling the area during the early years after the establishment of Port Honduras as a marine reserve.  Nowadays gill nets are not seen very often, that does not mean to say that they don’t exist. 

Today the families who lived on either side of the river are no longer there, neither can gill nets be found in that location near the mouth of the river.

One of the reasons is because of the programmes implemented by TIDE to buy the gill nets from the individuals who used them and to encourage them to get involved in other means of using the reserve for generating income.  The alternative livelihood program includes tourism options of Tour Guiding and Kayaking on the Rio Grande and Fly Fishing in the PHMR.

Actually today one of the young men who lived on the river banks is now a ranger of the PHMR.  TIDE’s mission is to promote sustainable development of the Toledo District by fostering the efficient and effective management of the regions resources, conducting relevant research and by promoting training and advocacy in order to preserve our natural heritage for the present and future generations.