Belize's Local "Manatee Man" Wins Global Award in London

Jamal Galves feeding a rescued manatee calf (Photo from Clearwater Marine Aquarium)

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Wherever he goes, Jamal Galves said that he carries his country, Belize, and his people. He was true to his word when he ascended a London stage to accept an award for his more than two decades championing the endangered and gentle Greater Caribbean Manatee, of which Belize is home to its last stronghold.

"It is not just about the award. It's about the opportunity and the platform that it creates for myself and for Belize," the biologist affectionately known in Belize as "The Manatee Man" told 7 News Belize (October 20). "Putting Belize on that map and making people aware of the conservation work that is being done in Belize is significant. (The work) is tremendous. It's moving the needle. It's an honor to have been a part of that. It's an honor to be among other individuals who are doing impressive work around the globe."

The Belizean hero was one of seven animal champions honored on October 16 by the International Fund for Animal Welfare, a global non-profit organization helping animals and people thrive together since 1969, according to its website. The animal welfare group works in more than 40 countries, rescuing, rehabilitating and releasing animals into their restored and protected habitats. This year's Animal Action Awards was its 25th.

The Animal Action Award is the latest of Jamal Galves' string of international accolades. He has been named a conservation leader in the New England Aquarium Marine Conservation Fund, a Planet Hero in the World Wildlife Fund and a member of the National Geographic Explorers' Club for which the organization recognizes the work of 50 extraordinary people, each year, who are doing remarkable work to promote science and exploration.

At home, he has been honored with the Meritorious Service from the Governor-General of Belize, the youngest recipient of the award.

The program coordinator and research biologist for Clearwater Marine Aquarium Research Institute in Belize has trained more than 3,000 boat captains and tour guides on reducing collisions with manatees, published key research, and worked with the Ministry of Tourism to minimize the impact of development on the local waterways, which are essential for the manatees' survival.

He is also working on building a Belize marine rescue center and training facility, having secured the property and received assistance from the Ministry of Tourism and other ministries, he told Will Mitchell in the video, How Belize Protects Its Gentle Giants: Manatee Conservation Insights (2024).

"Rescue, rehab and release is important but, for me, the key is the educational aspect. We'll be building a facility which is molding the next generation of veterinarians, biologists, lecturers, manatee protectors because I may not be the one who sees these animals come out of endangerment. I've got to spark the mind and brain of those who will continue the journey.

"When you walk through these halls, you'll learn everything about Belize marine life. And you'll also leave there seeing real life stories, seeing manatees being treated for boat scars, seeing calves being fed because they're orphaned."

Inspiration is the hope.

The program architect acknowledged that the marine center will resemble the Belize Zoo in its goals but, to this writer, it also shares similar aspects to the Seymour Marine Discovery Center, in Santa Cruz, operated by the University of California at Santa Cruz, where he received a master's degree in Coastal Science and Policy.

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"I was determined to save this species. It's my life's gift. It's a blessing. I'm honored. I'm grateful that I was selected to be the voice of a species that cannot speak for itself." (Photo from Oceana)

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What Are Manatees?

Manatees are large, herbivorous, aquatic mammals, which inhabit warm coastal and inland waters of the Caribbean, southeastern United States, northern South America and West Africa. They have a rounded body, a small head with a squarish snout, paddle-shaped flippers usually with vestigial nails and a flattened, rounded tail for propulsion, according to Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

Specifically, the Greater Caribbean Manatee, formerly known as the Antillean Manatee, is gray or brown, weighs 440 pounds (200 kilos) to 1320 pounds (599 kilos) and measures 8.5 feet (2.6 meters) to 11.5 (3.5 meters) feet, according to the Clearwater Marine Aquarium Research Institute. Its greatest population density is in Belize.

The Boy Gets a Hug

Shortly after the researcher began volunteering at the age of 11 on a boat for manatee research for the Clearwater Marine Aquarium Research Institute, he was excited to have his first face-to-face encounter with one of the mellow giants in a rehabilitation pen. Slowly, he lowered himself into the enclosure with a teenage manatee named Hercules. In the podcast, Nature Going Wild With Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant, Meet the Manatee Man, Nature on PBS (May), he said:

"I'm standing in the water. I could see the silhouette of its body coming straight toward me. My heart is panging -- pum pum pum pum pum pum pum pum. Is he going to bite me? At this point, I didn't know what he was going to do. So, I was frantic, just standing there, not even breathing.

"He comes up to me. He puts his head on my chest area, takes his flipper, puts it around me, holding me almost as if 'I'm giving you a hug'.

"To me, that's something that is larger than any payday, any promotion, any recognition. The manatee has already given me my token for my work. . . . The feeling of gratitude expressed by an unspoken being is priceless."

Gentle as they are, the existence of manatees is an endangered one.

People Are Its Predators

"Manatees are a tough animal. They're resilient. They tend to adapt really well. But sometimes the pressures put upon them by humans are tremendous. Manatees don't have any natural predators," Jamal Galves said in the video, How Belize Protects Its Gentle Giants: Manatee Conservation Insights (2024).

"People ask me 'What are the natural predators of manatees?' I say 'People'.

"The reason why they are endangered today is because they used to be hunted in the past. That has been replaced by the likes of watercraft collision. Many manatee get hit by boats across the entire country, even internationally.

"Another of the main causes for their demise is entanglement in fishing gear, non-sustainable fishing activity, like gill nets (flat nets suspended vertically in the water with meshes which allow the head of a fish to pass through but entangle the gills when attempts are made to withdraw), fish traps with ropes. Things like that are detrimental to this species. They see these as objects they are not familiar with and they tend to become curious and get entangled."

Banned in Belize: Gillnetting, Trawling, Oil Exploration and Drilling

Belize banned gill nets from its marine waters in November 2020 following a two-year process during which a stakeholder task force was established to study the issue; recommendations were developed in 2019 to phase out gill nets concluding in a ban; an agreement was signed in 2020 among the Coalition for Sustainable Fisheries, Oceana (an international advocacy organization) and the Government of Belize to assist gill net fishers to transition to alternative income-generating opportunities and trade-in their gill nets, and gill net fishers successfully engaged in 2020 in the transition and buy-back process, according to the Government of Belize Press Office (November 6, 2020).

Belize is a small Central American country, about the size of the state of Vermont or the country of Wales, and with a smaller population of about 400,000. However, despite its size, "the jewel", as Belizeans have dubbed it, has a treasure of an environment on land and sea.

Consequently, it has some of the strongest ocean conservation laws in the world. With the support of the Belize Fishermen Association, who would be directly affected by the ban, it banned all forms of trawling -- one of the first countries to do so -- in December 2010, reported Oceana (December 2010). A trawl is a large conical net dragged along the sea bottom in gathering fish and other marine life such as the green sea turtle, hawksbill sea turtle and the loggerhead sea turtle.

Belize made history when it signed into law in 2017 a moratorium on offshore oil exploration and drilling in all of its waters, which contain the second-largest barrier reef in the world and 1,400 species, reported Oceana (January 5, 2018).

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Photo from Re/Max 100)

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Other Challenges

The conservationist explained other challenges to manatees.

"Garbage pollution is also a problem. Plastic is everywhere, something that we, as human, have done a horrible job with. We need to find ways to stash our trash so it doesn't end up in the environment. Not just for manatees but for our human health as well.

"Habitat loss also has been a problem for these animals. Climate change is big, not just for people but also for ecosystems and manatees. Changing climate means that ocean levels are rising, temperatures are changing. Sea grass is sensitive to temperature so you have the sea grass die off. Like, for instance, on the east coast of Florida, they had a significant die-off of sea grass, where over a thousand manatee died of starvation. They're primarily herbivores. And now, in the state of Florida, all the facilities are at capacity. The government has reverted to feeding the manatees because it has no other option.

"We're trying to learn from mistakes or things that happen in the developed world to ensure that we, in Belize, don't have that same thing. We're taking the good that they do and we're trying to learn the things that they've done wrong to not replicate them because we don't want that to be a situation here in Belize. The population here is not big enough to sustain such a loss."

The population is estimated to be around 1,000, reported Regional Management Plan for the West Indian manatee (2010), United Nations Environment Programme, according to Increasing mortality of Endangered Antillean manatees Trichechus manatus manatus due to watercraft collisions in Belize (June 2023), co-authored by Jamal Galves.

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Getting water at Gales Point Manatee

(Photo by Cynthia Adina Kirkwood)

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The scientist's attitude toward animal conservation is an inclusive one, which extends to the people who share the environment with the animals. His village is Gales Point Manatee, an early maroon community in the late 1700s, a settlement made by persons who resisted enslavement by fleeing to live in self-sufficient communities in the hinterlands. Also, defending the environment is not a new thing for the people of Gales Point Manatee.

In 2022, the village galvanized against Vulcan, a multinational which had been eyeing it for limestone quarrying. Deputy Prime Minister Cordel Hyde told Channel 5 News in August:

“The residents from Gale Point Manatee have made it absolutely clear to the government that they don’t want that kind of activity in their neck of their woods. . . . You’re talking about our animals. You’re talking about our marine life. You’re talking about our hicatee (freshwater tortoise), our manatees, our turtles, our fishes, our trees, our mountains that would never be the same. So, why should we go down that road for a few jobs here and a few nickels there, while the rich multinationals would exploit our raw materials and ship them abroad?"

As a result, Belize government's senior officials took a collective policy decision that no surface mining, including strip, open or mountain top, will be permitted near Gales Point Manatee.

In the 1990s, when Jamal Gales first started to volunteer on the manatee research boat, only a handful of local people were involved in the program. Today, at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium in Belize, where he works as program director, 60 percent of the research team is made up of residents of Gales Point Manatee, he said on Nature Going Wild With Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant, Meet the Manatee Man, Nature on PBS.

"Being on the outside, for years, gives me a better understanding and appreciation for being on the inside. And it teaches me to ensure that inclusivity is important. And never forget to turn back and pull someone up because conservation is not a place for competitiveness. It's a place where you need every single person, so knowledge is key and sharing knowledge is the most valuable thing."

The global award winner and all the researchers who come to Gales Point work hand-in-hand with the local community. They understand that without the knowledge and experience of the people on the ground, true conservation is impossible.

"You can go study and get your PhD. or whatever you choose to get, but that's just theory. Things happening in the world do not happen theoretically; they happen practically. So, that man in his small little dinghy boat who sits out there for hours every day, he's the one who can tell you how many boats actually come in and out of this place every day. He's the one who can tell you all the things that are threatening the system. But we don't tend to appreciate, in general, those people.

"To really appreciate the idea of conservation, you have to know where it came from. In poverty, conservation is the way of life. You don't turn off the light switch because 'Oh, I'm trying to protect the environment'. You turn off the light switch because you can't afford to pay a high light bill. You don't have that bucket and fill it with water because 'I'm trying to be a conservationist'. You can't afford to pay the water bill.

"So, to me, conservation is a poor man's theory broadcast by a rich man.

"Conservation is not a place or a time. You don't need to be in the Caribbean to be a conduit of conservation. You don't need to be on a boat. You don't need to be on a beach cleaning up. These efforts are dependent on donations. If you're able to, donate to your local NGOs (non-governmental organizations), which are doing something to protect the planet. Volunteer. Be a part of the effort.

"Listening to this podcast today, I've told a story. I ask you to tell that story to three other persons and ask those persons to tell it to three other persons. And before you know it, you'd be surprised at the amount of people who have been inspired to want be a part of conservation. And that's where hope is going to come from."

Along with all of his conservationist work, the forward-looking thinker is also writing a children's book.

"Currently, it's called A Tale of Hope. But it may change. It's a book that going to inspire kids, not just to be a part of conservation, not just to be passionate about the world but to have hope in whatever it is they dream of."

What inspired Jamal Galves' dream? He explained it in How Belize Protects Its Gentle Giants: Manatee Conservation Insights (2024):

"I grew up in Gales Point Manatee. As a kid, a manatee was like a bird or cat to me. You see it all the time. You take these things for granted. And I remember clearly as a kid standing on my grandma's lawn seeing this weird-looking boat going by. It says "Manatee Research" and has an engine in the front and a weird-looking tower. Like a kid who sees a cool truck, I'm admiring this boat. I wanted to get on that boat, and I started asking questions and heard that they were doing manatee research.

So, before you know it, my cousins and I started playing manatee rescue on my grandma's lawn. Fight to drive the crew boat, who gets to be the doctor. Eventually, my interest outgrew my grandma's lawn. I wanted more than my imagination: I wanted the real thing.

So, I walked down to the dock where I actually met the guy who is still my boss today (Sadly, Dr. James "Buddy" Powell died days before the winners of the Animal Action Awards, for which Dr. Powell nominated his protógé, were announced), an 11-year-old kid. I stepped up and said, 'I want to come out with you guys'. He looked at me, shrugs and says, 'You're too small'.

But I'm really good at making an I'm-about-to-cry face that played on his heart. He says, 'Ah, kid. Let's go'.

"I didn't even ask my grandma's permission, which had some consequences. But I would do it all over again.

"Being out there with these world-renown scientists taught me things about a species that I've lived around my entire life. Learning and hearing that they were in danger, seeing the boat scars, knowing that they were in trouble, I felt, even though I was only 60 pounds, I wanted to save a species that was four times my weight.

"It may sound crazy. But sometimes you've got to take a big leap, dream big and not just dream but act on your dream. I pushed my way. I forged my way. I was persistent. I was determined to save this species. It's my life's gift. It's a blessing. I'm honored. I'm grateful that I was selected to be the voice of a species that cannot speak for itself."

After winning the Animal Action Award, he told 7 News Belize:

"Sometimes you have to take a path that's not cleared for us. You got to forge your own path. For me, it's giving dreams to kids who look like me in places that I've come from. They, too, can dream. They, too, can realize. It's not what society says. It's not what people may think of you.

"It's literally that thing that drives you the most and forging your way, pushing your way, seeking assistance 'cause many people have helped me. I always say that this is a journey of many. People have influenced my growth in more ways than one. And I'm forever grateful. 

"We are doing wonderful things in Belize. There's a lot more to be done. A lot more will be done."