By Belize Live News Staff: With the tourist season just weeks away, the Placencia Village Council is taking matters into its own hands to restore the village’s eroded beach.
The council met on Friday with business owners and tourism stakeholders to lay out immediate steps to prepare for visitors.
Chairman Warren Garbutt said that while there is not much sargassum on the beach right now, the damage it caused is still visible.
“It’s recovering very slowly, but it definitely needs a lot of help in getting back to some sort of an appeal that we can share with visitors,” Garbutt said.
He said the main short term solution is beach nourishment, which involves pumping eroded sand back onto the shoreline. That recommendation came from a recent erosion study.
“That is the quickest, cheapest action that can be done to restore the beach,” he said.
Garbutt added that sand from sources on the peninsula and further north could also be trucked in. He described the erosion as the worst the village has seen in many years.
For Placencia, the beach is the main draw for visitors, making the work urgent ahead of the high season.
