分类： environment

For millions of years, the tapir — known affectionately to Belizeans as the “mountain cow” — has roamed the forests of Central America, surviving ice ages, shifting ecosystems, and the slow march of evolution. Today, this quiet, resilient creature holds a place of honor as Belize’s national animal, a living symbol of the nation’s identity, natural heritage, and unbreakable connection to its wild landscapes. But as human development expands into tapir habitats, conservationists and political leaders are rallying to protect the species that Belize chose to represent its soul, in a new feature from News Five’s Kolcha Tuesday series.

When Belize emerged as an independent nation, its leaders faced a foundational question: what symbol would best reflect the new country’s values, identity, and aspirations? Former Prime Minister Said Musa recalled that the process of selecting a national animal was intentionally inclusive, opening the decision to all Belizeans rather than limiting it to political elites.

“We put out a call across all media at the time — Radio Belize, the Belize Times, and the two main television channels — and invited every citizen to send in their recommendations,” Musa explained. “It was a public election, and in the end, the people of Belize chose the tapir.”

At first glance, the tapir may seem an unexpected choice. With its bulky frame, short snout, and unassuming demeanor, it lacks the fierce charisma of the jaguar, Belize’s other well-known big cat. But to Celso Poot, founder of the Belize Tapir Project, the tapir’s characteristics align perfectly with what it means to be Belizean.

“Tapirs are resilient, strong, and incredibly adaptable,” Poot explained. “They haven’t changed much in 20 million years, but they’ve survived every shift in the natural world. That’s exactly who we are as a people. We want future generations to see tapirs walking wild in our forests, not just preserved on posters or in history books.”

That adaptability has served the tapir well for millennia, but modern human-caused pressures are pushing the species to its limit. The biggest threat today is not predation or natural disaster, but habitat fragmentation and road development. As old-growth forests are cleared for development and split by new highways, tapirs are forced to cross roads to reach feeding and mating grounds — leading to a sharp rise in vehicle collisions.

Poot launched the Belize Tapir Project in 2008, after a spike in tapir road deaths along Boom Highway. The issue became so urgent that just weeks after John Smith Road opened in 2020, five tapirs were killed in collisions along the new route. Poot and his team collected data on the deaths and lobbied Belize’s Ministry of Infrastructure Development and Housing to install warning signs to slow traffic in high-risk tapir crossing areas.

“Thankfully, the government listened,” Poot said. “Since the signs went up, we’ve only had two tapir deaths from cars on that stretch of road. It’s a small win, but it proves that simple mitigation measures can make a huge difference.”

Counting tapirs is no easy task. Unlike jaguars, which have unique spot patterns that allow researchers to identify individual animals, tapirs have no distinguishing markings, making accurate population counts difficult. Even so, conservationists have a clear picture of population density across the country and know where protection efforts are most needed. To expand the reach of their work, the project has launched a free public app called roadkill.bz, which allows anyone who spots a tapir or a roadkill incident to report it with georeferenced photos directly to researchers. The crowdsourced data helps the team track high-risk areas and prioritize mitigation efforts.

In recent years, some have questioned whether the jaguar, which has been adopted as the mascot for Belize’s national football team, should replace the tapir as the national animal. But Belize’s former prime minister dismisses the idea out of hand.

“The jaguar is already the national animal of other countries,” Musa said. “The tapir is ours, and it’s going to stay ours.”

Poot agrees, and sets the record straight on the tapir’s status as the true powerhouse of Belize’s jungles. “Jaguar can only prey on baby tapirs. Once a tapir reaches adulthood, it’s too strong for even the biggest jaguar to take down,” he explained. “The only real predator adult tapirs have is humans. That’s why it’s up to us to protect them.”

After 20 million years of survival, the tapir’s future in Belize now hinges on one question: can the nation balance its need for infrastructure and development with the protection of the natural habitats that the tapir — and Belize’s identity — depend on? For Kolcha Tuesday, Shane Williams reporting for News Five.

In just two days, one of Belize’s most anticipated culinary and commercial seasons will officially get underway: the 2026-2027 Queen Conch fishing season, launching October 1 and running through June 30, 2027. But regulators are clear that this timeline comes with a critical caveat – if the total national catch quota is reached before the scheduled end date, the Belize Fisheries Department will shut down the season early to protect wild conch populations.

Until the season kicks off on Wednesday, any activity related to conch remains against the law under Belize’s existing fisheries regulations. That includes harvesting, purchasing, selling, or even possessing Queen Conch throughout the country. For those looking to participate in the season legally once it opens, strict size and weight guidelines have been put in place to ensure that only mature conch are harvested, supporting the long-term sustainability of the species.

All harvested conch shells must measure greater than 7 inches (17.8 centimeters) in length, and meat must meet corresponding minimum weight requirements depending on how it is processed. Unprocessed whole conch must weigh in at more than 7.5 ounces (213 grams), while market-cleaned conch must exceed 3 ounces (85 grams), and conch fillet must weigh more than 2.75 ounces (78 grams). Any conch that does not meet these thresholds cannot be legally taken, traded, or held.

Additional regulations apply to processed diced conch: no individual or commercial entity, including restaurants and local vendors, may buy, sell, or store diced conch without a special permit issued directly by the Fisheries Administrator. Exporters are also bound by quota limits set under the Fisheries Resources Act, and are prohibited from shipping more conch than their allocated allowances.

As the season approaches, the Belize Fisheries Department is calling on the public to help enforce sustainable fishing practices by reporting any suspected illegal conch fishing activity to authorities, reinforcing the country’s commitment to balancing cultural culinary tradition with responsible marine conservation.

In Stann Creek District, a popular coastal tourism destination in Belize, a worsening environmental crisis is unfolding at Hopkins Village, where unprecedented beach erosion and a surging sargassum influx are rapidly eating away at the area’s most valuable natural asset.

Local residents report the current situation is the most severe they have witnessed in years. Oswin Nunez, a six-year resident of the southern shoreline near Cabana Village, has watched the sandy coastline retreat dramatically in just a matter of months. What was once a broad, expansive stretch of sand in front of his property has shrunk drastically in recent weeks. Recalling the scale of the loss, Nunez noted that two years ago, a marine biologist surveying a sea turtle nest on his stretch of shore recorded roughly 60 to 65 feet of sand between the nest and the ocean’s edge. Today, he estimates between 30 and 40 feet of that beach has vanished entirely.

Unlike the natural cyclical shifts in shoreline Nunez has observed in the past, where sand would retreat temporarily and gradually return, this current permanent loss shows no signs of reversal. “We see it come, we see it go, we see it come back. This time it did go and it’s not coming back,” Nunez explained. The erosion is not evenly distributed across the village: while the southern stretch of Hopkins is facing catastrophic loss, the northern section of coastline has not experienced the same level of depletion.

Ella Carr, chairwoman of the Hopkins Village Council, confirmed the severity of the crisis, echoing resident accounts that erosion is concentrated heavily on the village’s southern end. Carr reported that some sections of the southern shore have lost around eight feet of sand, while other vulnerable stretches have seen up to 16 feet of erosion disappear into the Caribbean. Local hotels, the backbone of the area’s tourism economy, have already reached out to the council to report devastating beach loss on their properties. “I’ve got calls already. They said that they have lost a lot of their beach and it’s looking terrible,” Carr said, noting that the degradation is already damaging the appeal of Hopkins as a top coastal tourism destination, putting local livelihoods at risk.

Compounding the erosion crisis is a persistent, overwhelming invasion of sargassum that has washed ashore in massive quantities. The rotting seaweed releases a strong, foul odor that local residents say has become unmanageable in daily life. “The stench that you smell daily, it’s overwhelming, just a little bit too much,” Nunez described.

For the small local governing body, the crisis outstrips existing resources and capabilities. The Hopkins Village Council lacks the specialized heavy equipment needed to clear the massive volumes of sargassum and address the large-scale erosion, so local leaders are now calling for urgent external assistance. “We would love to get more help, further help, because Hopkins is a resilient community, but we cannot do this alone,” Carr said. A scheduled council meeting to discuss the crisis, originally planned for the date of the report, was canceled, leaving the community in limbo as the situation worsens.

Even if intervention eventually stabilizes the shoreline, Nunez fears the damage is already permanent. “Even if it comes back to normal, it will never give you back the amount of sand that we already lost, never build up back to the level where it’s at right now,” he said. While Nunez does not believe the rising water will reach his home in the near term, he has begun planning mitigation efforts of his own, planning to plant additional trees along the remaining shoreline to slow further loss. Still, he acknowledges that local action alone cannot reverse the large-scale crisis unfolding along the coast. “Nothing we could do will fix this right now, this is bigger than us,” Nunez said.

As mid-September 2026 arrived, climate monitors recorded a worrying milestone in the tropical Pacific: sea surface temperatures in the key Niño-3.4 monitoring region hit 3°C above long-term averages, pushing an already strengthening El Niño event toward unprecedented intensity. Forecasters from leading global climate institutions are now sounding the alarm that this weather phenomenon is on track to become one of the most powerful El Niños recorded in modern climate history, with far-reaching consequences for global weather patterns and human life.

The most recent data analysis from the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI) confirms the sharp rise in the Niño-3.4 index, the standard metric for tracking El Niño conditions. Every single one of the 22 climate models tracked by IRI points to the event maintaining exceptional strength through the 2026-2027 Northern Hemisphere winter, with multiple models projecting peak sea surface temperatures will remain above the 3°C threshold that defines an extreme El Niño. Echoing this warning, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has stated that El Niño conditions are likely to persist through at least February 2027, reshaping global climate systems for months to come.

Strong El Niño events are well-documented for their ability to disrupt global rainfall and temperature distributions, amplifying the risk of concurrent climate extremes: prolonged drought in some regions, catastrophic flooding in others, and widespread extended heatwaves across much of the globe. A new study from the University of Chicago’s Climate Impact Lab has now quantified the staggering human toll that this upcoming extreme event could bring. The research projects that between June 2026 and February 2027, the additional heat driven by this Super El Niño will lead to roughly 451,000 excess heat-related deaths worldwide, when compared to mortality figures for a typical non-El Niño year.

According to the report’s projections, average global land temperatures over the coming months will settle around 1.2°C above the long-term baseline, with the number of extreme heat days set to be 44% higher than what populations normally experience. The burden of these impacts will not be shared equally: the Climate Impact Lab researchers warn that low- and middle-income nations in the Global South, particularly across Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia, will bear the heaviest consequences due to higher vulnerability to heat and limited access to adaptive infrastructure like widespread air conditioning and early warning systems.

Beyond the direct human health impacts, the event is already disrupting global commodity markets. As Reuters reports, heavier-than-usual rainfall tied to El Niño in Brazil — the world’s top sugarcane producer — has delayed harvesting operations and forced producers to shift their processing balances between sugar and ethanol, creating uncertainty for global food and energy supply chains.

With the event predicted to hold its strength through the end of 2026 and influence weather patterns well into 2027, climate scientists are continuing to closely monitor the evolution of the unusually warm Pacific sea surface temperatures, as governments and humanitarian organizations prepare for the widespread impacts of what the UN has described as a ‘supersized’ El Niño — the strongest event the world has seen in more than 70 years.