TAT energetically, albeit painstakingly, checked box after box in protecting the atoll, backed by funds from Turneffe Flats, global anglers, and grants from conservation-related funds. Beyond merely donating lodge profits to Turneffe Atoll Trust (TAT), he built an environmentally sustainable business that set the standard for fly-fishing lodges worldwide. Over the next 17 years, more than 1,200 members in 48 countries followed suit. For Hayes, it was like finding the missing piece of a puzzle. Turneffe Atoll Trust.”Ĭhouinard, the founder of the Patagonia clothing company, and Mathews, the founder of Blue Ribbon Flies, signed Turneffe Flats to the 1% for the Planet program in its inaugural year. I knew what environmental group it would go to. They asked me to be a charter member, and I said ‘yes’ right there on the spot. “They told me they were starting an organization to get businesses to donate 1% of their income for environmental conservation. “Yvon Chouinard and Craig Mathews walked in,” says Hayes. A lifelong conservationist, he had recently formed a nonprofit organization to more effectively work on conservation issues facing Turneffe Atoll, the largest and most biologically diverse coral atoll of the four in the Western Hemisphere. It was 2002 and Hayes stood manning his promotional booth at a fly-fishing trade show, wooing would-be customers with the prospects of fly fishing amid tailing permit and bonefish, resident tarpon, and epic sunsets. It marks a milestone in the storied career of Belize’s Turneffe Flats owner Craig Hayes. It could be the start of a joke except that the punchline is no gag. Two well-known conservation-driven anglers walk into a trade show. It was originally titled Believing in Belize: How the Turneffe Atoll Trust is working to preserve paradise.) (This story first appeared in the 2019 Fly-Fisherman Destinations Issue.
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