Commercial trawling for shrimp began in Belize in 1985 and has continued to the present. Development of the industry has progressed without knowledge of the magnitude of the bycatch and possible ecological and economic impacts.RDA International in 1990, was contracted by USAID-Belize to identify qualitative and quantitative attributes of the bycatch in shrimp trawls, assess reefs and critical habitats for possible impacts of the trawling operations, and recommend management measures to guide sustainable and environmentally sound development of the industry. The originally conceived study intended to monitor a minimum of one full trawling season. However, due to the limited funding available for this study, it was not possible to obtain data froma full season. Because of this, the conclusions and recommendations in this report must be considered preliminary.