In 1996, Belize was considered a pioneer with the passing of the PACT Act. Today, the protected areas landscape continues to take shape and expand. Currently there are 103 protected areas that form a vast national protected areas system (NPAS), with categories that encompass forest reserves, nature reserves, national parks, marine reserves, private reserves, wildlife sanctuaries, natural monuments, bird sanctuaries, spawning aggregation reserves and archaeological reserves.

After over twenty-five years, PACT has evolved from a grant-funding mechanism and is now the country’s accredited national implementing entity (NIE) of the Adaptation Fund and has become the Caribbean region’s second and Belize’s first National Direct Access Entity of the Green Climate Fund. The organization has been engaged in fiduciary roles for such agencies as the World Bank, the Meso-American Reef Fund (MAR Fund), the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the Central American Commission for Development and Environment (CCAD) and the Belize Nature Conservation Foundation (BNCF).

In October 2015, the amended PACT legislation was passed which expanded PACT’s legal mandate to “setting strategic priorities for the development, mobilization, and allocation of financial resources for the BNPAS.” In 2018, PACT transitioned from an annual competitive grants program to a Conservation Investment Program guided by a Conservation Investment Strategy. This new strategy took a long-term approach to responding to the needs of the BNPAS while supporting biodiversity and ecosystem protection, building financial sustainability, and expanding socio-economic benefits from Belize’s Protected Areas System.