Project update - Project Bay Islands, Honduras - January 2004
Added to website: 01 January 2004
Project Brief
Aim
Project Bay Islands Honduras is a three-year collaborative project to survey the coral reefs of the Bay Islands. The programme provides training and conservation education opportunities for local Hondurans, as part of an integrated programme to develop local capacity and ensure the long-term protection and sustainable use of marine resources throughout the region.
Location
Santa Helene, Roatan, Honduras, Central America.
CCC Partners
CCC is working at the invitation of and in partnership with the Universidad nacional Autonoma de Honduras (UNAH), Programa Manejo Ambiental Islas de la Bahia (PMAIB)
Marine Science Programme
Baseline Surveys
Number and location of Surveys
Due to the bad weather and boat problems only seven baseline surveys were conducted, all in the Anthony’s Cay sector.
Number of transects completed
One transect completed
Reef Check
None. All reef check surveys were completed in October 2003
Interesting / Unusual Sightings
We are still blessed with sightings of: green turtles, hawksbill turtles, bottlenose dolphins, southern stingrays and spotted eagle rays. Additionally, the big octopus under the rock at the old pier happens to have a new neighbour, a large-eyed toadfish! What a monster that is!
Environmental Awareness
Capacity Building/Training of Local Counterparts
Community Interaction: After the success of our CCC volunteers re-painting the maternity ward of the Coxon Hole hospital, we have been asked to organize another painting session! However, in order to do so we needed somebody to provide us with the very expensive paint. As the hospital could not afford to provide this, we asked local charity organizations if they could help us out. And guess what, we got 100 litres of white and blue paint from the local supermarket! This means that we can get started with painting the hospitals emergency room the very next week!
Marine Ecology Education Workshop: After a lot of organizing and hard work we are finally about to start the Marine Ecology Education Workshop for 40 local teacher trainers in the first week of February 2004! We are proud to announce that CCC scientists have provided 4 power point lectures covering: coastal habitats, coral biology, fisheries biology, and threats to reefs. Two additional lectures will be provided by PMAIB, our local counterpart, covering marine reserves and coastal zone management in the Bay Islands. The aim of this workshop is to provide teacher trainers of the Bay Islands with the scientific information they require in order to implement the new environmental education curriculum in their schools. As half of the teacher trainees speak only Spanish we have provided our lectures in both Spanish and English. Additionally, we decided to split the workshop into a two-day Spanish version and a two-day English version. The Institute of Marine Science on Roatan has offered to host the workshop.
Scholarship Scheme:Three university students from the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Honduras (UNAH) in Tegucigalpa, joined the expedition in December through the CCC Scholarship Award Scheme. Two of these three students have left us by now after successfully completing their PADI Advanced Open Water SCUBA certification and the Science Skills Development Programme. They have also collected baseline survey data alongside our international volunteers. The third student is still with us for another month, helping CCC scientists develop community projects and in particular make CCC education programmes more accessible to the Spanish speaking communities on Roatan. She also has started her Rescue Diver course recently.
Meetings attended CCC science staff have attended several meetings with PMAIB, our main project partners, to continue discussions regarding the Marine Ecology Education Workshop for teacher trainers planned for the first week of February 2004.
