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Evan Long
Hayley Moll
History 594
Grant Proposal for Global Heritage Fund: Cultural and Ecotourism in Rural Crooked Tree
Village, Belize
Proposal Summary
Crooked Tree Village is a rural village located in an important migratory bird
wildlife sanctuary in Rural Belize. While the village has benefited from tourism brought in
by the wildlife sanctuary, significant tensions remain in the community over fishing and
hunting rights and distribution of profits made by tourism. At the same time, villagers in
Crooked Tree are worried that young people are losing touch with their traditional
Belizean Kriol roots. This grant proposal seeks to expand opportunities for ecotourism and
cultural tourism beyond the Belizean Audubon Society-run wildlife sanctuary and into
particularly disaffected groups within the community. In so doing, this grant seeks to
provide an additional source of income for Crooked Tree villagers and foster pride in
Crooked Tree Villages unique Kriol culture.
Background
Crooked Tree Village is located in North-Central Belize just thirty three miles
northwest from Belize City and it may be the oldest village in modern Belize.1 Settled by
logwood cutters in the early 18th century, Crooked Tree Village is a Kriol village descended
from these early British settlers and their black slaves. Many of the traditional cultural and
survival practices of these early settlers survive in the rich heritage of Crooked Tree Village

Jenny Brown Haddle, Community Residents Perceptions of Ecotourism Impacts and Conservation Issues in
Rural Creole Belize: A Case Study of Crooked Tree Wildlife Sanctuary, (masters thesis, University of Florida,
2005), 33.
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today and they have been the cause of significant conflict between the village and the
wildlife sanctuary that the village is located in.2
Crooked Tree Village is located on an island in the middle of a vast lagoon/wetland
system that makes up the Crooked Tree Wildlife Sanctuary. The Crooked Tree Wildlife
Sanctuary was established in 1984 and was Belizes first Wildlife Sanctuary. The lagoon
system is an important stop for over 332 species migratory birds during the wet season
and is home to the famous Jabiru Stork, the largest flying bird in the Americas.3 Initially the
Crooked Tree villagers were very supportive of creating a wildlife sanctuary, but tensions
between the village and the managing Belize Audubon Society have increased over the
years, particularly over fair distribution of tourist dollars throughout the community and
fishing and hunting rights.
When the sanctuary was initially established in 1984, the Belizean Government
promised the villagers that they would not impose on traditional fishing rights. However,
the Belize Audubon Society now regulates the right of villagers to fish within the
boundaries of the sanctuary. Fishermen must pay a set fee of $10.00 per net haul of fish
they remove from the lagoons and fishing is restricted at certain times of year. The Belize
Audubon Society argues that these restrictions on fishing are necessary to protect the
ecological health of the lagoon system and insure sufficient food supplies for migratory
birds. However, fishing remains one of the staple forms of income for villagers in Crooked
Tree and the Audubon Societys attempts to impose restrictions is a significant source of
Melissa Ann Johnson, Nature and Progress in Rural Creole Belize: Rethinking Sustainable Development,
(PhD diss, University of Michigan, 1998), 35-36.
3 Olivia Carballo-Alivez, Crooked Tree Wildlife Sanctuary Outreach and Education Plan, (Belize Audubon
Society, August 2008), 6-8.
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tension between village and Wildlife Sanctuary.4 In addition, hunting is expressly
forbidden within the boundaries of the Wildlife Sanctuary, but native Crooked Tree
villagers have traditionally relied on bush meat as a supplementary source of protein and
income in a sparse economy.5
Economic opportunities in the village are limited and few people have an
established occupation. Instead, people rely on a Ketch and Kill style of economic
subsistence where seasonal and temporary employment may be supplemented by cattle
farming, cashew production, work in the tourist industry, and fishing. Few people in the
village have a set occupation.6 A significant proportion of the population also lives in the
United States and most villagers have relatives living in the United States who send home a
portion of their earned income. Land ownership is low and many young people feel that
economic opportunity is limited within the confines of the village and are looking to
migrate out for work. Given the scarcity of work and economic opportunity within the
village, many villagers look to the Wildlife Sanctuary and tourism to provide important
income for the local economy.7
However, villagers are also worried that money from tourists to the Wildlife
Sanctuary is limited to only a few beneficiaries connected to the three major hotels in
Crooked Tree Village: The Birds Eye Lodge, Crooked Tree Lodge, and Tillets Village Lodge;
with most of the tourist dollars going to the Birds Eye Lodge. In addition, villagers are also
Haddle, Community Residents Perceptions of Ecotourism Impacts, 43-44.
Carballo Alivez, Crooked Tree Wildlife Sanctuary Outreach and Education Plan, 26-27.
6 Johnson, Nature and Progress in Rural Creole Belize, 134.
7 Alicia McGill, Characterizations of Village Life in the Home of the Cashew: Cultural Preservation, Self
Determination, and Cultural Tourism (paper presented at the 2014 Annual UNC-Duke Consortium in Latin
American and Caribbean Studies Conference in Chapel Hill, NC), 6.
4
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upset about outside hiring of tour guides and tourist industry workers at these lodges.
While most villagers agree that the entire village benefits indirectly from tourist dollars,
there is a sense that most of the tourist dollars go to support a few relatively wealthy
families in the village. For instance, 70 percent of villagers interviewed in one study
indicated that they believed the hotels benefited most from tourist dollars.8 In addition,
tourist data from the visitors center dated from 1990-2003 suggests that tourism numbers
have dropped off since historic highs of 2,621 visitors in 1990 to half of that, 1,299 visitors,
in 2003. While not all tourists go through the Crooked Tree visitors center or sign the
guestbook, the numbers suggest a stagnant tourist economy.9
Finally, loss of Kriol culture and heritage is a larger problem that is symptomatic of
Crooked Tree Villages recent economic struggles and the focus of Belizes larger tourist
industry. Belizes heritage tourism industry has focused most of its efforts in tourism
development and education on promoting the countrys Mayan and African roots. In
comparison, Kriol heritage has been largely ignored as a problematic legacy of the
countrys British colonial roots.10 Crooked Tree villagers often express equal parts pride
and shame in their bushy Kriol heritage. While villagers celebrate the self-reliance and
natural knowledge of hunting and fishing obtained through their Kriol heritage, they also
express shame in the supposed ignorance and provinciality of Kriol identity.11 These issues
of cultural loss, pride, and shame are compounded by the significant out-migration of
8Haddle,

Community Residents Perceptions of Ecotourism Impacts, 70.

Haddle, Community Residents Perceptions of Ecotourism Impacts, 49.
10 Alicia McGill, Cultural Education, Heritage, and Citizenship in the Belizean State: A Summary Report of
Alicia McGillAal a wi da wan?: Cultural Education, Heritage, Citizenship in the Belizean State, Unpublished
Ph.D. Dissertation, Indiana University (2012), June 2013, 11-12.
11 Alicia McGill, Characterizations of Village Life in the Home of the Cashew, 8.
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young people to Belize City and the United States for work. While many of these migrants
will later return to Crooked Tree Village later in life, these global migration patterns
complicate attempts at heritage preservation in a national environment that is already
unsupportive of Kriol culture.12
The purpose of this grant is to establish new patterns of ecotourism and cultural
tourism that will address the underlying problems of Kriol heritage loss in Crooked Tree
Village. This project will establish new tourism opportunities in Crooked Tree village that
draw on the villages unique Kriol heritage to involve a greater proportion of the
population in tourism and establish patterns for sustainable fishing and use of wildlife
resources in the sanctuary. While this grant project cannot hope to address all the issues of
economic inequality or tension between village and Wildlife Sanctuary, it can provide a
model and a beginning point in establishing a more healthy working relationship between
the two.
Project Description
The Crooked Tree Cultural and Ecotourism Project seeks to use the natural
landscape surrounding Crooked Tree village as the basis for continued tourism growth.
While the majority of tourism to Crooked Tree village has focused on the migratory birds in
the Wildlife Sanctuary, the surrounding forests and lagoons actually play host to a variety
of exotic and endangered species that could provide the basis for a series of profitable
ecotourism tours. Beginning in the 1940s, Crooked Tree villagers used their bush skills to
lead big game hunting tours. Today, they could use those same wildlife-tracking skills to
12

Johnson, Nature and Progress in Rural Creole Belize, 35-36.

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instead lead sustainable tours of the areas local flora and fauna. Tour guides can lead
separate nocturnal and daytime forest tours to seek out some of Crooked Trees more
prized inhabitants, such as the jaguar, the Yucatan black howler monkey, the yellowheaded Amazon parrot, the West Indian manatee and the Bairds tapir to name a few.13 In
addition, these tours can provide additional income during the off-tourist, dry season when
access to the village is easier but the traditional migratory birds are not in residence.
The program will also enlist local fishermen to lead fishing tours during off-fishing
times. The tours will highlight traditional fishing techniques like spear fishing and help
keep these cultural traditions alive in Crooked Tree village. In addition, the income earned
by the fishermen can help supplement the cost of taking fish from the Wildlife Sanctuary on
more commercial trips. Ideally, the use of fishermen to lead fishing tours will not only
revive more traditional fishing techniques, like spear fishing, but it will also lead to less net
fishing, which has been blamed for depleting fish stocks in the lagoon system. If fishermen
can earn more money taking less fish from the system because of foreign tourist dollars,
then there will be less incentive to fish commercially. In addition, the use of fishing tours
will incorporate one of the groups most marginalized by the Wildlife Sanctuary into
Crooked Trees tourist economy.
Finally, the program will enlist local women to lead Kriol food demonstrations for
tourists returning from the fishing tours. Tourists will be able to take the fish that they
caught to the homes of local women who will teach them how to prepare the food in
traditional Kriol styles, using many of the products that grow locally: such as cashews,
13

Belize Audubon Society, Crooked Tree Wildlife Sanctuary Outreach and Education Plan, 8-9.

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coconut, and mangoes. The incorporation of women in food demonstrations will foster
pride in Kriol food traditions and also provide these women with an additional source of
income.
The proposed tours will need significant investment in advertising and
infrastructure in order to be successful. Tillets Village Lodge already offers a similar food
demonstration, but has had no tourists who have actually taken the tour.14 Part of the
reason for their lack of success is because they are not well advertised and they dont have
regular run times. Even if tourists found out about these tours, the hassle of trying to
contact the supposed guides to set these up would probably discourage most visitors from
even trying. As a result, the program will need to invest significant money into Internet,
print and television advertising in the United States since most tourists to Crooked Tree
Village are American tourists. The tours will also need the support of all three hotels and
the program should incentivize the hotels promotion of these tours. Finally, the program
will need to invest heavily in training programs for potential tour guides to ensure the high
quality these tours and their attractiveness to American tourists.
The goal of these tours is not to provide full time employment to villagers in
Crooked Tree Village or replace the efforts of the Belizean Audubon Society in the Wildlife
Sanctuary. Rather, these tours are supposed to provide an additional source of income for
local villagers and help to spread the wealth of tourism to groups traditionally excluded
from the tourist industry, like fishermen and bush meat hunters. By including these

Delia Julene Tillet, Tillets Village Lodge, Crooked Tree Village, Belize,
http://www.tillettvillage.com/index.html (accessed December 13, 2014).
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groups, the tours will help promote environmentally sustainable practices by
demonstrating the value of natural resources to beyond that of simple consumption. These
tours will also help revive flagging tourism numbers by providing opportunities beyond
migratory bird watching to attract tourists. Finally, these tours will move beyond simple
economics by providing a vehicle for the celebration of Kriol culture in a village where it is
under threat.
Project Implementation Plan
The first goal of the program is to set up the infrastructure to hold these tours and
identify potential stakeholders within the community of Crooked Tree Village. While we
will work with the village council to identify potential tour guides within the village,
mistrust of the village council makes it a problematic vehicle for community outreach.15
Therefore, we will also reach out to all of the local churches since they provide a bulwark of
community activity within Crooked Tree. We will also reach out to the Belize Audubon
Society to gain their cooperation and support for our program. Training of potential tour
guides will take place within the churches of the community and the school. Our hope is
that by utilizing the churches, we will avoid some of the fractured politics of village council
and identify participants who would not traditionally come to village council meetings, but
are involved in other aspects of village social life.
Our training program will be developed in collaboration with our potential tour
guides. While we will set the general curriculum and plan for training, it is our hope that
the recruits from Crooked Tree Village will invest in the program by bringing their own
15

Johnson, Nature and Progress in Rural Creole Belize, 121-122.

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ideas and individuality to the tours. We will rely on our tour guides to explore potential
recipes, fishing techniques, and find the best trails four our wildlife tours. By involving the
local community and giving them a voice in creating the programs, we hope that they will
feel ownership of the project and use it as a vehicle for both economic growth, but also for
the development of Kriol heritage.
At the same time that we identify and train potential tour guides, the program will
develop a sophisticated marketing campaign for targeted outreach to the United States.
American tourists make up the majority of visitors to Crooked Tree Village so they provide
a natural constituency for our tours. However, we will have to identify specific segments of
the American population who would be most interested in ecotourism and cultural
tourism. We will reach out to all of the major travel publications in the United States to find
the best venues to place our print and television advertisements. We will also hire a
marketing firm to help produce our advertisements and to help improve and maintain our
website.
Finally, we will reach out to the three major hotels in Crooked Tree village to
support our tour program. In the past, villagers in Crooked Tree have complained that the
three hotels (The Birds Eye View Lodge, Crooked Tree Lodge, and Tillets Village Lodge)
tend to monopolize the tourist industry. Our project seeks to ameliorate some of that
tension by spreading some of the tourist wealth to other segments of Crooked Trees
population, but our project cannot succeed without the help and support of the major
hotels because they are the major liaisons between tourist and village. In return for a small

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share of the tour profits, we will enlist the three hotels to advertise our tours to incoming
guests.
Budget
Total: $100,000
Print Advertising: $20,000
TV Advertising: $30,000
Website: $5,000
Training Program: $35,000
Local Program Manager: $10,000