Darrel Audinette

Protected Areas Conservation Trust

In 1996, Belize was considered a pioneer with the passing of the PACT Act. Today, the protected areas landscape continues to take shape and expand. Currently there are 103 protected areas that form a vast national protected areas system (NPAS), with categories that encompass forest reserves, nature reserves, national parks, marine reserves, private reserves, wildlife sanctuaries, natural monuments, bird sanctuaries, spawning aggregation reserves and archaeological reserves. In the twenty years since the Protected Areas Conservation Trust was established, PACT has been accredited national implementing entity (NIE) status for the Adaptation Fund as well as granted a fiduciary role for such agencies as the World Bank, the Meso-American Reef Fund (MAR Fund), the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the Belize Nature Conservation Fund (BNCF). In October 2015, the amended PACT legislation was passed and like the PACT Act before it, it represents a bold step in the direction of actualizing and accommodating the needs of the country's protected areas system.