Jaguar Cars support Belize conservation

Press Release dated: Thursday, February 27, 2003

A team of young scientists from the University of East Anglia (Norwich) arrived in Belize this week to carry out research that will benefit wild Jaguars. The three researchers, who are undertaking their projects as part of their MSc studies, will be working with a local Belizean organisation, the Programme for Belize (PfB), who own and manage a huge reserve in northern Belize. The students are Begonia Sastre who is looking at the economic benefits to the local communities of conservation, Dave Redding who is studying the effects of vegetation type on the prey species of the Jaguar and Puma, and Juan Carlos Ruiz Guajardo who is looking at the effects of logging on Jaguar prey.

Jaguar Cars has been supporting conservation in Belize for over 10 years, and their latest grant is to the World Land Trust, who have initiated this imaginative joint programme with PfB and UEA. The studies will investigate a range of issues, including assessing the conservation benefits to the local people, the effectiveness of corridors between nature reserves, and the expectations of eco tourists. The results of these investigations will help the long term goals, which are to ensure that sufficient income is generated to pay for the conservation of the land and its wildlife, and the local people are able to derive significant benefits.

Fact File
- The World Land Trust was instrumental in establishing the Programme for Belize, and has been supporting land acquisition programmes since 1989.
- PfB now own and protect over 252,000 acres -- nearly 1/20th of the country.
- Jaguars once roamed free from Texas to Argentina, but are now extinct over much of their former range
- Belize is a stronghold for Jaguars. While they are difficult to see, their footprints are often spotted in the reserves
- Ecotourism is one of the main sources of income in Belize, once dependent on sugar exports and logging.
- The UEA scientists who are studying on a Masters course in Applied Ecology and Conservation, will be returning to the UK in June

For further information contact the World Land Trust: 01986 874422 (John Burton)
University of East Anglia: Mary Pallister 01603 593007.

For more information, contact: John Burton
CEO
World Land Trust
jab*at*worldlandtrust.org (To avoid spam, we cannot show the email address in full. Please replace *at* with the symbol @ in your email address field.)
Web site: http://www.worldlandtrust.org

 
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