After a long day of snorkeling on one of the world's most spectacular reefs, sunburned tourists gather on the Bite on the Beach deck to survey the sunset over Roatan's West Bay and compare fish stories. Each year more tourists come and the bar sells more gallons of rum punch. Yet as the fish population slowly declines, the fish stories become more and more fanciful. Success is turning into disaster for this Caribbean island.
     With the world's second longest barrier reef stretching 1000 kilometers from Mexico to Honduras, the islands of the western Caribbean have become a favorite vacation destination for tourists from the U.S. and Europe. Once sleepy islands have undergone a population explosion.
     In 15 years the population of Roatan has soared from 10,000 to over 30,000 people. While many of these are sunseekers from the north, landless peasants from the Honduran mainland have also arrived in droves looking for land to grow corn and beans. The construction of luxury hotels and the building of roads, combined with unsound agricultural practices imported from the mainland, has combined to spell environmental disaster for Roatan. The forest cover has diminished, the water table is falling, the lagoons are filling with sediment and sewage, and the reefs are losing their brilliant fish populations. Paradise is in serious trouble.
     In order to avoid similar disasters in other parts of the region, the prime minister of Belize and the presidents of Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras met in the Mexican resort town of Tulum on June 5 and approved the Mesoamerican Caribbean Reef System Initiative. The agreement commits the four governments to more vigorously protect the fragile reef system, second in the world to Australia's Great Barrier Reef.
     Several international lenders have said they'd help fund new projects emerging from the Tulum Agreement, but political will appears to be more in demand than money. Irma Brady, executive director of the Roatan-based Bay Islands Conservation Association, says the Honduran government developed plans in 1988 for an environmental program to rescue Roatan. The Interamerican Development Bank gave the money. "Yet because of the bureaucracy, we're still here without anything in place," Brady says. "It makes me sad. If those plans had been implemented, today we would be a example for the rest of the Caribbean."
     Sergio Mirence, subdirector of the Honduran government's biodiversity agency, says new laws and money aren't always the solution. "You don't have to wait around for someone to finance a project, you just need to grab the laws and regulations that already exist and say, 'Look sir, I'm sorry, but this is a national resource that's deteriorating, and we have to control it. If you lose money, I'm sorry, but it's better to lose money now than lose everything later.'"
     Corruption is one obstacle to conservation and rational development. Honduras has a constitutional clause barring foreigners from owning land within 40 kilometers of the coastline except in urban areas. Yet the scandal-ridden administration of former President Rafael Callejas declared Roatan an urban zone, making it possible for foreigners to buy up beachfront property.
     "I don't like what's going on over on Roatan," complains Barry Jackson, a resident of neighboring Utila Island. "They're getting lots of foreigners coming in, big movie stars and famous singers who are buying up all the property, and that's making life difficult for the local people." 
     Similar changes are taking place in nearby Belize. "The reef is under increasing pressure from a variety of sources, especially uncontrolled tourism. We run the danger of robbing our resource to death," says Osmani Salas, executive director of the Belize Audubon Society (BAS).
     Under pressure from Salas and others, the government of Belize this year stepped up its vigilance of the reef, applying harsher penalties to cruise ships that drag anchors across fragile reefs and fishing boats that stray into protected reserves. Yet Norris Hall of the BAS argues that the fines aren't enough and that violators should have their ships impounded. "The United Nations declared 1997 as the Year of the Reef," says Norris, "yet in Belize it's the year for the destruction of the reef."
     Salas insists that blaming tourists isn't the answer. "Rather than blaming tourists we should establish adequate measures to limit the impact of tourists," he said. "The onus is on us to regulate, regulate, regulate if we are going to protect the resource."
     Salas supports tourism, but says the country needs to choose what kind of tourism it wants.
     "If you look at the Islas Mujeres off the coast of Quintana Roo in Mexico, you'll see a good example of how mass tourism can destroy a precious resource," Salas declares. "Belize needs to decide whether we want mass tourism or nature-based tourism. We still have time to decide. Our politicians just need the courage to decide and the will to carry out their decision."
     Belize possesses more of the Mesoamerican Reef than the other parties to the Tulum Agreement, and Salas says it should lay claim to the market niche for the "eco-friendly tourist." That will make vacationing in Belize more expensive, but Salas argues that Belize "doesn't need millions of tourists for the economy to grow. We can get by with less tourists who are willing to pay more to see an intact resource."
     In addition to their tourism potential, the world's one million square kilometers of coral reefs have been called the "rain forests of the sea." They host thousands and thousands of species and offer billions of dollars' worth of undiscovered biological and genetic treasures.
     According to Brady, preserving what remains of the reefs will demand "a major investment in education and changing attitudes." Yet she complains that until now, "our governments haven't invested much in environmental education. If you look at the Honduran government budget, the environment ministry is the last one on the list. That tells you where our priorities are."