I enjoyed my recent interview with Lori-Ann Murphy of El Pescador. After talking with her I did some more poking around on-line to see what I could find out about development or over-development in Ambergris.
The first thing I found was nice little video by Wil Flack, good friend of Lori-Ann and seemingly all around good guy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSrWsFRPuQM?fs=1&hl=en_US
South Beach Belize… it sounds pleasant, doesn’t it? Wouldn’t it be nice to retire down in Belize… grab your rod in the morning after you’ve had your coffee and go and catch a bonefish in out your front door? It does sound nice. The downside is that they have to dredge the bejesus out of the flats and bulldoze the hell out of the mangroves to get that front door there. All those mangroves are where the fish live/grow/hunt. You nuke the mangroves and you nuke the fishing.
I don’t even know that much about saltwater fishing, but I can understand that pretty well.
Sounds like these guys have been botching the job since day -1 (and more).
It is a little difficult to figure out what exactly is happening on the ground. I found the website for Ambergris Caye Citizens for Sustainable Development and their listing of the status of current projects. They seem to think that the project has not been green-lit, although it is easy enough to find folks selling South Beach Belize property.
It sounds like the project is on hold for now. Before you go and drop some coin on a little bit of raped and pillaged Belize, just think that these guys sold plots for a project that isn’t even in the bag. That can’t be good.
I have no idea, but I can’t get this video to embed in this post… here’s a link to a video called “How South Beach Belize Will Impact Ambergris.”