"The Worst I Have Ever Seen"

I just received a tragic report from our Belize field staff that on Wednesday evening, Jan 14, the Netherlands-registered cargo ship Westerhaven ran aground on the barrier reef near Caye Glory on the evening of Wednesday, Jan 13. The ship was on its way from Belize City to a port in Guatemala when it ran aground on a section of the reef off Caye Glory. The point of grounding is 32 miles southeast of Belize City, 15 miles south of English Caye and just east of the southern end of Southern Long Caye, just inside the reef.

The ship leveled a section of healthy coral reef some 100 meters long by 100 meters wide (119.6 square yards long by 119.6 square yards wide), destroying a total estimated area of over 10,000 square meters (approximately 11,959.9 square yards).

These pictures of the ship still aground on the reef and the rubble and scars gouged into the reef platform were taken by Gieri Palacio, a Belezian who worked with the shipʼs owners when they conducted their initial assessments on Friday and Saturday.





My colleague Dr. Melanie McField, Coordinator of the Healthy Reefs for Healthy People Initiative, visited the site of the freighter grounding and is reported in the online Belize news service Amandala as saying “This is by far the worst I have ever seen. I’ve never seen anything like this. It is unbelievable… The reef has been completely leveled, basically from the stern to (the aft of) the boat"

Despite the staggering damage, McField feels optimistic about salvaging some of the coral colonies that were overturned or dislodged as a result of the grounding.

On Sunday the Westerhaven was removed from the barrier reef near Caye Glory and today a team from the Belize Ministry of Fisheries and the Department of the Environment and Development conducted an assessment at the grounding site. Dr. Melanie McField and Armeid Thompson from Healthy Reefs Initiative assisted the Fisheries Department and DOE. They plan to return to the site to cement any displaced coral colonies that can be salvaged.

From a solely economic perspective, Dr McField commented on a Belize message board that each square meter of Belize' reef is worth approximately US$2,000 in direct economic benefits such as storm protection, tourism, and fishing. Extrapolating that figure to the 10,000 meters of reef damaged or destroyed by the ship and that's an approximate US$20 million in losses to the Belize economy.