By: Omar Silva I Editor/Publisher

National Perspective Belize I Digital 2025

www.nationalperspectivebz.com

Belize City: Friday 4th July 2025

EDITORIAL:

In Belize, it seems we are always applauding ministries for lofty ideas, catchy slogans, and beautifully laminated reports. But when it comes to delivering solutions that matter, too many of these same ministries fold under the weight of their own mediocrity.

Look no further than the Ministry of Blue Economy.

Here we have a portfolio with an expansive mandate—marine resources, fisheries, sustainable tourism, climate resilience—and a budget large enough to make a difference. Yet, when the single most obvious and unignorable marine crisis of the past decade comes rolling ashore in smothering heaps of sargassum, the Blue Economy behaves as if it’s a minor inconvenience, best left for hoteliers and village councils to rake into rotting piles.

This ministry has been content to watch the private sector spend millions on emergency cleanups while it issues limp statements about “monitoring the situation.”

Where is the investigative research?

Where is the pilot project to study sargassum’s commercial potential?

Where is the vision to transform this biomass into an economic asset instead of a perpetual burden?

Other countries—some poorer, some smaller—are leagues ahead of us in thinking and action. Barbados is turning sargassum into organic fertilizers. Mexico is making construction blocks. Even Haiti has pilot studies in biogas.

And Belize?

Nothing but excuses dressed up as “strategic dialogues.”

Let’s be clear: If the Ministry of Blue Economy cannot take the initiative to study sargassum as a resource, what exactly is it doing? Should we rename it the Ministry of Seafront Photo Opportunities? Because that’s all the public seems to see: photo-ops, conferences, and hollow declarations.

The irony is inescapable. We talk endlessly about the “Blue Economy” as the future of Belize—yet the ministry tasked with shepherding that vision has proven itself startlingly myopic. It cannot see the potential in a substance washing ashore by the thousands of tons. It cannot connect the dots between environmental management and economic diversification. It cannot inspire confidence that Belize is serious about building resilience and prosperity from our marine heritage.

Belizeans are entitled to expect more than tired slogans. We deserve a ministry that actually rolls up its sleeves, commissions rigorous studies, partners with innovators, and invests in pilot solutions.

Anything less is simply bureaucratic posturing—an insult to the coastal communities grappling with this crisis every day.

If the Ministry of Blue Economy cannot be stirred to action even when opportunity literally piles up at our feet, perhaps it is time to ask whether we have the wrong people steering the ship.

Belize is not short on talent, ideas, or entrepreneurial spirit. But we are certainly burdened by a political class that believes optics matter more than outcomes. This is the moment to demand better—before we are buried, quite literally, under the weight of our own neglect.