Belize Field Trip Days 2 and 3

Independence 18 March

The flight down from Belize City to Independence as been interesting, we flew over the coastal areas that show gradations of vegetation from a forested section immediately adjacent to the beach area to a back area of what looked like grasslands – open, non-forested areas.  On the way we could see large areas put aside for ponds for fish farming with broad channels carved into the land from the sea to provide brackish water to the ponds.

After landing at Independence, where we will sleep for 2 nights we left for Monkey River Village, no longer a town due to its small population. One of the features of the Village is that the beach is being eroded which makes it a good site to come and carry out beach profiling, which Dr Nurse has been doing for several years.  It is an ideal opportunity to combine some different strands of research combined in a field trip.

Myself, Michelle Wilson and Valance Humphreys worked together to carryout surveys within the Village focusing on water management and climate change and the changing environment in and around the village.  We targeted mostly older people as we thought that these would have a longer memory and this proved to be the case.  One of the things that struck us was the relative consistency of some of the information we were getting.  For example many pointed to the damming of the river by banana growers as a cause of the problems at the beach – a consistent theme.  However, these people we inferred had not actually seen the sand bar, but they believed from what they had been told that it was the cause.

The actual process of speaking to people showed that you have to spend quite a lot of time and allow people to talk to get at the sort of information you would like to have.  Often parts of it emerge at different points in the interview.  Allowing time gives people the opportunity to think around the subject and this time lets them remember points and share them that might not otherwise emerge.  The semi-structured nature of the interview also means that interesting avenues of ‘interrogation’ can be followed.

What emerged during the feedback and discussion we had in the evening was how much of the qualitative data could be supported by other observations and measurements but also how it brought that other information into context and gave it meaning.  The evening discussion was really great and I think it added to he richness of the day’s experience.

Independence 19 March

The focus today turned away from the coast and looked at the river processes.  One thing comes very strongly to my mind – there has been so much going on today that would make excellent material for the video’s.  There’s been the water quality testing, the interviews, contrasting flow gauging techniques, sampling along the river, looking at gravel mining, the contrast between the Bladen, Swasey and Monkey rivers, even perhaps a compilation of human use of rivers, etc.  I almost don’t know where to turn with all of this but I do think it would be a good idea if we could all share the information and images (moving or still) that we have gathered.

More immediately the river assessments today brought home to me issues of representativeness; how do we know that what we are observing is representative of what is going on.  It also highlighted the importance of transects, something we didn’t really get into but is hugely important.  It was mentioned that there are differences in farming practices along the Bladen and the Swasey that affect the width of the riparian buffer zone that farmers leave along the river.  The buffer zone along the Bladen is wider and there is more native forest left whereas the Swasey they farm right down to the river side.  We certainly saw some evidence of this today.  The other aspect was water quality sampling – just how much is enough to be representative?  We could also do with thinking about putting together a field kit for water quality work for such field trips.  All this has made me even more convinced that a better way would be to go down in kayaks to do the surveying and sampling.  I also think that there are opportunities to do more social/community surveys in the upstream areas.

Just from the feedback from various people today from the different things they observed there have to be questions about what is going on in the catchment as to my mind there is a far from complete picture of the various activities and forces at play here.  And that builds on information we had yesterday from some of the interviews.

On another point I think in future we need to build in a day when the results of the fieldwork can be digested and any calculations etc can be performed.  A catching up day could be one in which time can be spent in groups thinking and working on assignments etc – perhaps even mini presentations.

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