Leandra Cho-Ricketts is currently the Executive Director of the Belize Fund For A Sustainable Future (BFSF). She joined the BFSF in August of 2022. She is leading the startup of this new Fund (established March 2022), including organizational setup, strategic planning, fund management and the development of grant making programs, aligned with the Conservation Commitments under the Blue Bond Loan Agreement.
She is a coral reef ecologist by training and co-founder of the UB Environmental Research Institute with twenty years of experience in the field of coral reef management, marine protected areas, marine conservation, and fifteen years of administrative leadership. She was one of the 2022 Ocean Hero Award recipients for her long standing marine conservation and education work.
She completed her PhD in Marine Sciences from the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica in 2004. She was a past director of the Coastal Zone Management Authority and Institute, where she led the development of the first CZM plan, from 2000-2004. In 2005, she joined the University of Belize (UB) as an Assistant Professor where she was engaged in teaching Belize’s future resource managers and marine biologists, training professionals within the environmental NGO community, and conducting research and consultancies that support sustainable resource use and conservation. She transitioned to the UB Environmental Research Institute in 2009 and led the research and monitoring programs of the Turneffe Atoll for over eleven years, with a focus on coral reefs and associated mangrove/seagrass ecosystems and started piloting reef restoration activities in 2016. She served as a member on several national committees and networks providing
