The Coastal Zone Management Authority and Institute, in partnership with The Nature Conservancy, is inviting the public to choose a logo for the Belize Sustainable Ocean Plan (BSOP)- Belize’s Marine Spatial Plan (MSP). The development of the BSOP is a principal milestone in achieving Belize’s conservation commitments under the Blue Loan Agreement and the Conservation Funding Agreement signed between the Government of Belize and The Nature Conservancy (TNC) in November 2021.
Marine Spatial Planning is an inclusive and participatory process through which stakeholders determine the optimal distribution of human activities across marine areas to achieve the country’s ecological, economic, and social objectives.
Voting for a logo follows on several stakeholder engagement activities already conducted to involve Belizeans in the BSOP process. Notable actions to ensure public participation so far have included:
1. Preliminary consultations with key government, non-government, and private sector stakeholders.
2. Establishment of a BSOP Steering Committee with representation of stakeholder groups from the fisheries, coastal zone management, tourism, water resources, shipping, environment, finance, academia and energy sectors.
3. Selection of a name for Belize’s MSP process through a public electronic voting poll hosted on Facebook.
4. The official launch of Belize’s Marine Spatial Planning process on October 19th, 2022, to share with the Belizean public what the MSP process is and how they can participate in developing a plan that serves their diverse interests.
5. Unveiling of the name selected by the public for Belize’s MSP process – the Belize Sustainable Ocean Plan – at the MSP official launch.
Today, the public is once again being invited to participate in this national process. The logo will be an essential component in creating a distinctive brand that the public can immediately associate with the Belize Sustainable Ocean Plan. The logo should be distinctive and memorable
and should reflect the purpose of the BSOP. Most importantly, it should be meaningful to the people of Belize.
The public can vote for their preferred logo on the CZMAI’s Facebook page. Voting for the logo is now opened as of Tuesday, December 13, 2022, and will close at 5PM on Monday, December 19th, 2022.
