Tara’s story: A 26-year-old’s fight to unite a community to save Belize’s vital marine ecosystems

By Climate Champions | December 6, 2024

An interview with: Tara Scarborough, Chief Resilience Officer at the Coastal Zone Management Authority and Institute

Country & Region: Hopkins, Belize

Breakthrough: Coral Reefs, Aqua Food, Coastal Tourism, Marine Conservation

Beneficiaries / Impact: The barrier reef system and mangroves within Belize’s territory serve as critical “insurance policies” for Belize City and other coastal communities, acting as natural break walls against disruptive events. According to the World Resources Institute and the World Wildlife Fund, the ecosystem services provided by these coral reefs and mangroves are valued at $395-$559 million USD annually, representing 30-45% of Belize’s GDP. The ongoing science, conservation, restoration, management, and enforcement efforts by government and non-government agencies, which are pivotal in enhancing reef health. This positive trend is reflected in the latest report card assessed by The International Coral Reef Initiative (ICRI).

After eleven days living with the Belizean conservationist, Tara Scarborough, the Edges of Earth team learned about the 26-year-old’s dedication to resilience efforts in her home country. Situated along the world’s second-largest double barrier reef, Tara has been an advocate for the system throughout her life and career. She guided the expedition team through priority projects, navigating offshore atolls and meeting with scientists, conservationists, eco- and community-led operators, and fisherfolk, all working to protect their home from advancing climate challenges.

As part of the Climate Champions’ Ocean Breakthroughs, the Edges of Earth team shadowed Tara as she guided the team through cultural hubs and dive sites. There, she showcased Belize’s vibrant ecosystems as well as regions more heavily impacted by climate change and human activity. Tara is a champion for deep collaboration and open communication, advocating for advancing science, closing knowledge gaps, furthering community engagement and delivering effective management practice.

WORK HARD MINDSET FROM DAY ONE

I grew up with my grandfather Lincoln out on the cayes, where he’s been fly fishing for years. My godfather, Carlos, has been fishing out at Glovers for years too. Living with my mother, I grew up immersed in the tourism industry, where I worked for years before leaving to pursue further education. My hard-working mentality comes from my grandparents and watching them over the years; I was lucky to have them. Most in my mother’s generation and before didn’t get a university degree, so they pushed generations like mine hard to go to school and strive for success. I grew up with the belief that you need to pull your own weight—nobody’s going to do it for you. My dad used to say everything a man can do you can do too, and he taught me to do things myself. I remember being covered in car oil while he taught me to fix engines; sawdust when he had me build all my own furniture and sweat from plowing an entire field for planting. No job was ever too big! Hearing that repeatedly from a young age made a lasting impression; nothing would ever deter me from what I wanted.

Hard work? Yes, it’s tough, but it gave me the strength to keep pushing through the most challenging times in my life because I always knew my end goal. I started working from age 13, and being out on the water and exploring the cayes with my grandfather is where I fell in love with the sea. Weekends and summer breaks were special—my grandfather would take me out to the islands. To this day, being out there on the sea still brings me the same sense of peace.

I can have noise around me all day, every day. But when I’m out there, it’s quiet, and that has never changed for me. It’s been a part of my life since the beginning. Growing up in Hopkins, a southern village in Belize, I witnessed firsthand how deeply our community’s livelihood depended on the sea. For Belizeans, education about the reef starts early. From primary school onward, I learnt the importance of not littering and the damage caused by touching corals. This ingrained respect for the ocean has shaped my passion and commitment to marine conservation.

Understanding the importance of the ocean from a young age, combined with the knowledge that about 50 percent of our country’s livelihood depends on it, pushed me even further. While it was a passion of mine, I also recognized its immense significance to my community and country. This realization is what set me on my career path.

A CAREER IN RESILIENCE & CONNECTIONS

Currently, I serve as the Chief Resilience Officer at the Coastal Zone Management Authority and Institute. In this role, I lead the Reef Resilience Strategy for Belize, a collaborative initiative created alongside the Fisheries Department and Coastal Zone, with support from stakeholders, the Great Barrier Reef Foundation and their partners.

Each project I work on involves collaboration with different partners, each focused on their unique goals and objectives. For instance, we partner with the Wildlife Conservation Society on an Alternative Sustainable Livelihood project. They’re compiling over a decade’s worth of previous in-country project information to enhance our strategies. We’re examining what has worked and what hasn’t to ensure that we’re implementing sustainable and lasting solutions for our communities.

We partner with the University of Belize’s Environmental Research Institute on a project focused on combating Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease. This devastating coral disease is currently plaguing our country and much of the Caribbean. To combat this, we are not only relying on scientists but also involving our community. In the Turneffe Atoll region, we are working with guides, fisherfolk, and tour operators connected to major resorts in the area. Everyone is contributing to combat the disease head-on, showcasing a united effort to preserve our marine ecosystems.

Because I head the Reef Resilience Unit within the Coastal Zone Management Authority & Institute, I am involved in various groups, networks and committees, including the National Coral Reef Monitoring Network. The network includes managers of all the marine protected areas in the country, as well as key organizations like the Fisheries Department, The Nature Conservancy, Blue Ventures, and Coastal Zone Management Authority and Institute. This access enables me to engage with a broad range of stakeholders and decision-makers, fostering collaboration and informed decision-making for our marine ecosystems.

My role involves ensuring that projects under RRI are executed effectively, fostering open communication among stakeholders, and meeting our collective goals. This requires coordinating between multiple organizations and ensuring everyone stays aligned and informed.

In many other countries, people in roles similar to mine often struggle to bring everyone together. But in Belize, we don’t have that issue. Our country boasts a diverse array of individuals managing their own science, conservation, education, and community projects. We have numerous dedicated partners all working towards the same goals and outcomes, united by a common vision to keep our reef healthy—not just for our organizations, but for the country as a whole. The challenge lies in maintaining open communication with everyone, given the many players involved.

I’ve always planned ahead. In high school, I was already saving and preparing for university. When I was pursuing my associate degree, I was working three jobs to pay for it and simultaneously saving for my bachelor’s. And when it came to my master’s degree, it was the same story. I learned early on that while having a degree is important, it’s even more important to have experience.

That’s why I started working in the industry early. By the time I completed my bachelor’s, I had six to seven years of field experience. Now, with my master’s and almost a decade of experience, I’ve built a solid foundation. I’ve volunteered with almost all the stakeholders and partners I collaborate with today, which has allowed me to establish myself. Having worked in some of the communities we focus on now, I understand their challenges, struggles, needs, and wants intimately.

EYES WIDE OPEN 

We’re having many more conversations now, and with increased government and financial support, we’re capable of achieving far more than we ever could before. Numerous wonderful initiatives are currently in place that are making significant impacts on our reef, and I’m honored to be part of some of them.

Seeing small changes firsthand in the field makes me genuinely happy, not just for myself and the partners I collaborate with, but for everyone in the country who benefits from our work, even if they aren’t aware of it. The work we’re doing to protect the reef has a broad impact, affecting the lives of all Belizeans. Over time, I’ve noticed significant changes, especially in the coastal areas where I grew up.

We are sitting here on the beaches of Hopkins right now. If you look behind you, you will see all of this sargassum washed up on shore. This wasn’t common during my childhood, but it became a severe issue some years back. There’s also more coastal erosion and severe coral bleaching now. I used to work at a dive shop from 2014 to 2019, and even before that in the tourism industry out at the cayes. The changes at South Water Caye, near my home, were much more than I was prepared to see when I came back after studying.

Glover’s Reef, located about 45 kilometers from the mainland, used to be teeming with much larger fish and a greater abundance of marine life. While high biodiversity still exists, it’s nowhere near what it once was. At Turneffe Atoll, the largest atoll in Belize, the changes are visibly evident given the impacts of SCTLD. Regular bleaching events now starkly illustrate the impact of climate change, affecting the coastal communities I grew up in.

These communities are aware that the climate crisis is at their doorsteps and are actively trying to mitigate its effects. While some might not grasp the full extent of the climate crisis, they undeniably see the changes happening around them. These changes impact their daily lives, making the issue impossible to ignore. Working alongside these communities, we focus on climate mitigation projects to address these visible and immediate threats.

A COMMUNITY THAT’S ALL IN

For my country and people, my primary concern is the health of our reef. Last year, we experienced one of the hottest summers since NOAA’s records dating back to the 1880s, and the extreme heat is expected to persist this year as well. Typically, temperatures would cool down towards the year’s end, but this year it is projected to get even hotter. Due to this intense heat, we had to halt coral nursery and restoration projects within country. The water temperatures are currently too high for their survival and we do not intend to put our corals under any more unnecessary stress.

But what makes Belize truly unique is our unity. We don’t celebrate our successes as much as we should. We sometimes overlook how much progress we’re making and how many people are rallying around the shared vision of a healthier and more resilient reef. This collective dedication and the ongoing work of countless individuals and organizations give us hope and drive us to keep pushing for better outcomes for our reef and our communities.

I believe with a bit more support, data, and research, we can continue to reach new milestones. I hope to see other students continue the research, projects, and initiatives we do. I want to help more people discover their roles in preserving the reef, ensuring this crucial work doesn’t stop with my generation. No matter your passion, whether engineering, construction, medicine, tourism or teaching you can all do your part in protecting our Barrier Reef. My biggest goal is to inspire more individuals to maintain the passion that I have, ensuring our efforts never die out. The incremental progress we see now can turn into big impacts later. We have just gotta keep that drive going together.

What I hope you take away from your time in Belize is that we should be used as an example. Here, we understand that fighting climate change is not a siloed effort but requires collaboration. Unfortunately, it often seems like the world is trying to combat this crisis in isolation. We’ve heard very often that we cannot work in silos, we cannot achieve anything on our own, but how much do we actually act on this common knowledge. We often let ourselves, our organizations and our environment distance us from collaboration and trap us in an unwinnable battle. The only way we’ll see real change and progress is if we join forces. While we handle tasks and projects individually, the real impact comes when we collaborate, share information, and work together.

This approach allows us to maximize our impact and support a broader range of initiatives across the country. Let’s keep the lines of communication open on a global scale. By learning from Belize’s collaborative approach, I believe we can create a more unified and effective global response to the climate crisis.

As told to Andi Cross in May 2024.

ABOUT THE OCEAN BREAKTHROUGHS

Resulting from the joint efforts of the Ocean & Coastal Zones community and building on the Ocean for Climate Declaration, the Ocean Breakthroughs have identified five turning points to reach by 2030 in order to achieve a healthy and productive ocean in 2050. These five turning points are focused around the most crucial ocean sectors: marine conservation, ocean renewable energy, shipping, aquatic food, and coastal tourism. Accelerated action and investments in each will help unlock the potential of the ocean as a source of solutions to the pressing challenges posed by climate change and biodiversity loss.

The scientific evidence is clear: as a major climate regulator and the largest living space on Earth, the ocean is integral to deliver on the goals of the Paris Agreement and the Global Biodiversity Framework. The Ocean Breakthroughs are science-based targets designed to boost mitigation and adaptation efforts, for the benefit of People and Nature. They will contribute to delivering on the global campaigns led by the UN Climate Change High-Level Champions, namely the Race to Resilience and Race to Zero, and their respective action agendas: the Sharm-El-Sheikh Adaptation Agenda and the 2030 Breakthroughs.

ABOUT THE HLC X EDGES OF EARTH EXPEDITION

The women-led global expedition, Edges of Earth, has partnered with the UN Climate Change High-Level Champions (HLC) to bring to life the Ocean Breakthroughs initiative by sharing personal accounts and climate action stories from remote coastal communities. This media partnership will feature interview-style stories that highlight the experiences and efforts of locals, Indigenous communities, nonprofits, and ocean scientists in addressing climate change. Celebrating its one-year anniversary, Edges of Earth has traveled to 25 countries (with nearly 30+ more to go throughout 2025) working closely with diverse groups to understand and amplify their climate resilience strategies. Through this collaboration, Edges of Earth will spotlight the five Ocean Breakthroughs by showcasing diverse voices and solutions to accelerate global climate action.