Three Lagoons Team Fights Trash to Protect Public Beaches

When it comes to coastal clean up and mangrove restoration in northern Belize, the Three Lagoons Sustainability Program is taking the lead. What started as an organization with four members seven years ago catapulted in a movement of education and community empowerment. Seven years ago, President of the Three Lagoons Sustainability Program, Edgar De Leon, first enrolled his immediate family members to the organization. They have since expanded their membership and reach through their transformative work and with support from organizations like the Belize Fund for a Sustainable Future. News Five’s Paul Lopez travelled to Sarteneja Village to meet with the team behind the mission. Here is that report.

 

“The Environment is no one’s property to destroy. It is everyone’s responsibility to protect”- Mohit Agadi, Author

 

Paul Lopez, Reporting

Coastal litter, especially plastic, has significant impacts on marine life and human wellbeing. Marine life can ingest plastic or get entangled in litter. Both can prove fatal. It also poses significant risks to human health. One organization has been investing its time and resources into protecting the sixty-six feet coastal reserve in northern Belize.

 

Edgar De Leon Sr., President, Three Lagoons Sustainable Program

“We want to create stewardship within our community for us to protect the sixty-six feet, which is not only access for the public, but it is also ecologically rich.”

 

For the past eight years, Edgar De Leon and his team at the Three Lagoons Sustainable Program have been on a mission to protect a vital stretch of our coastline. This coastal reserve, which runs sixty-six feet inland from the highwater mark, is public land. That means no matter who owns the property nearby, everyone has the right to enjoy the beaches, the shoreline, and the waterways. But not everyone treats it with the care it deserves. Too often, beachgoers leave behind trash, ignoring the damage it does to the environment and the very spaces we all share.

 

Edgar De Leon Sr.

“As we know we are not seeing the fish eating the plastic but we know it is happening. We do not see it doing bad to our bodies. But we know that it is doing bad to our bodies.”

Edgar De Leon runs the Three Lagoons Sustainable Program out of Chunox Village, named after the trio of lagoons that surround it. Today, he’s in Sarteneja, leading a beach cleanup and mangrove restoration. And he’s not alone. A group of young ‘Eco Guardians,’ led by his sixteen-year-old son, Edgar Jr., are right there with him. It’s grassroots conservation with the next generation at the helm.

 

Edgar De Leon Jr., Captain, Eco Guardians

“We made this Eco Guardian group to encourage teenagers out there that instead of being inside their house with technology, phone, laptop, tablet, they could come out, help us clean and make a better Belize.”

 

With more than a dozen volunteers on hand, the organization combined more than half of the community’s coastline, picking up multiple forms of litter along the way. From plastic bags tangled in mangroves to dried coconut limbs scattered along the shore, nothing was left behind. Volunteers cleaned every inch of the sixty-six-foot coastal reserve. And when that was spotless, they didn’t stop there. The campaign pushed deeper into the heart of the village, showing just how serious this community is about protecting its environment.  This effort went on for two hours.

 

Edgar De Leon Jr.

“We do cleanups during the summer from February to June where we execute approximately ten cleanups, one every two weeks.”

 

From coastal cleanup to mangrove restoration, over the years Three Lagoons Sustainable Program has planted more than fifteen thousand mangrove seeds.  Mangroves serve an important role to Belize’s coast, as both a wind breaker and critical fish nursery. Mangroves do more than just look pretty, they’re nature’s shield against erosion. And in Sarteneja, the difference is clear. Where mangroves are missing, the shoreline is literally slipping away. Darnell Cruz is a member of the Sarteneja Village Council.

 

Darnell Cruz, Councilor, Sarteneja Village

“As you can see this is an area constantly affected by erosion. Usually when we have storms and hurricanes water tends to wash away our seafront and eventually if this continue we will lose access to this part of the village. By them planting more mangroves we are getting an opportunity. Erosion will stop. This type of mangrove they are planting, the red mangrove, it grows prop roots, so that serves and assist in erosion.”

 

The Three Lagoon Sustainability program planted more than two hundred mangrove seeds in this location. De Leon says that ninety-five percent of the seeds planted usually survive. He used the process to teach his volunteers about the red mangrove and how to position the seeds along the coast to ensure a high success rate. Andrea Carillo has been part of the Three Lagoons team since day one.

 

Andrea Carillo, Mentor, Three Lagoon Sustainability Program

“I am very proud because we started as five people, me my uncle, his wife. We started from very low. People did not want to help us. But now as we have grown people feel attracted to it and they have joined, and I am so proud of it.”

 

The Belize Fund for a Sustainable Future is playing a key role, through its support, in ensuring that community-based organizations like the Three Lagoons Sustainability Program can continue to engage in this transformative work.

 

Edgar De Leon Sr.

“The directors the Belize Fund has are awesome people, very easy to work with are very professional and the fact that we can communicate so easily and the fact that we are being push forward into a brighter future as an organization.”

 

Three Lagoons Sustainability Program has also done significant reforestation work and education campaigns in various schools across Corozal district. Reporting for News Five, I am Paul Lopez.