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What the report on fees charged by marine parks doesn't even address at all is that many park rangers are underpaid and corrupt and not all the money that you pay them goes to what it is supposed to. Also, even if the money does make it to the government, governments in the third world are notoriously corrupt as well and not very efficeint at utilizing their resources. I have lived here in Belize for ten years and have seen hundreds of boats of lobster fishermen harvesting lobster in our marine reserves and I rarely hear of any being caught, although once in a blue moon they are. It is really something that I would leave up to the good conscience of a person who utilizes a marine reserve whether or not they pay when there is no one around to charge them forcefully. If you see that the reserve is beautiful, filled with fish and coral life, and looks adequately maintained, then look at it as a reward or a tip for excellence. If there is a significant degradation of the coral and fish and if lobster fishermen are illegally poaching everywhere in a marine park that you go into, perhaps think of the early morning pullout as your best option. Rewarding corruption and bad management probably isn't the ideal thing to do.
One could argue that the degraded marine park is more in need of the money than the good one, but often the real issue is corruption and just inefficeint utilization of resources. What to do about that? That's a whole other thread for another forum most likely.
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