Local and Global News
Photo by Ryan Pernofski
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Resilience in Honduras
When COVID-19 hit, the Roatán Marine Park lost 85% of its revenue. But through CORAL’s partnership, they were able to prioritize patrols and continue protecting their coral reefs. Like many businesses and organizations in Honduras’ Bay Islands, the Roatán Marine Park (RMP) is almost entirely reliant upon tourism—85% of its operating budget is tied to…
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Research Shows the Importance of Hot Reefs
New results from our pioneering research show that protecting reefs that thrive in warmer waters may be key to helping evolution rescue reefs from the effects of climate change. For the last several years, we’ve been leading research funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and other funders to understand how we can best…
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The Women Behind the Scenes
Our three community scientists in Honduras brought improved fishing practices to the Mesoamerican Reef by building important relationships with fishers. Paola Urrutia, Greissi Lizeth Villatoro, and Ana Bessy Valdez spend their days building relationships with fishers. As our community scientists in Honduras, they travel every morning to popular fisher landing points and meet with the…
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900 Native Plants for Coral Reefs
On Maui, we enabled 10-year-old Abby Rogers to grow 900 native plants in her backyard to help us prevent sediment from entering the ocean and smothering coral reefs. When COVID-19 hit, 10-year-old Abby Rogers was looking for a way to help protect the environment. As a newly certified SCUBA diver, the Maui resident could now…
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Finding Resilience in Honduras
As Executive Director of the Roatán Marine Park, Francis Lean can relate to her tourist clientele—she used to be one of them. Originally from Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, Lean used to join the 1.6 million people who visited Roatán on vacation each year. Roatán is one of the three main islands that make up…
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Maui 10-Year-Old Grows 900 Native Plants to Protect Coral Reefs
10-year-old Abby Rogers has converted her backyard into a native plant nursery to help save coral reefs. Rogers is a volunteer with the Coral Reef Alliance (CORAL), helping to grow native plants that will be transplanted at their stream restoration site in Wahikuli. The native plants trap sediment that runs off the slope and into…
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The Women Behind the Science
It’s 6:45 a.m. when Paola Urrutia arrives at Tela Bay. She makes her way down to the water, finds the spot where the fishermen will disembark after their morning catch, and sits down to wait. On the northern Caribbean coast of Honduras, Tela Bay sits at the bottom of a gently sloping tropical forest, marked…
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Maui 10-Year-Old Grows 900 Native Plants to Protect Coral Reefs
For Immediate Release Thursday, October 1, 2020 Maui, Hawai’i – 10-year-old Abby Rogers has converted her backyard into a native plant nursery to help save coral reefs. Rogers is a volunteer with the Coral Reef Alliance (CORAL), helping to grow native plants that will be transplanted at their stream restoration site in Wahikuli. The native…
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CORAL Helps Revitalize Bay Island Economies in Honduras
The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered an unprecedented economic crisis across the globe—particularly in countries and regions that are highly dependent upon tourism revenue. In Honduras, for example, eight percent of the GDP comes from tourism. Spring break is one of their most popular travel periods when tourists from around the world flock to the Bay…