A Holistic Approach to Marine Conservation
Added to website: 10 November 2005
Coral Cay Conservation (CCC), the British coral reef conservation group, is to expand its work to include socio-economic monitoring in the Bay Islands, Honduras.
Ongoing survey work of the areas surrounding Santa Elena, a small island community located near Roatan, have already revealed specific areas of high biodiversity which CCC’s local partners, PMAIB and the Honduran Government, are in the process of designating as Marine Protected Areas (MPAs).
Funding from the National Oceanic and Atmosperic Adminstarion (NOAA) Coral Reef Conservation Grant Programme will enable CCC and partners to develop a comprehensive understanding of the social and economic parameters of local communities and how these are likley to be affected by the proposed MPA plans.
Research on MPA effectiveness has shown that an understanding of the social, cultural and economic foundations of communities that rely on coastal resources is as crucial as understanding the ecological components and processes of marine ecosystems.
The assessment will be conducted according to the Social Monitoring framework developed by NOAA for the Caribbean. Through this socio-economic monitoring programme, CCC and PMAIB will establish a good baseline understanding of the economic and social activities of the Santa Helena community, the way they interact with and perceive their marine environment, and their views on and capacity to support the proposed conservation area.
Peter Raines MBE, founder and chairman of CCC had this to say on the programme: “An understanding of the socio-economics of target communities is a fundamental pre-requisite to coastal resource management and protection. Combined with the extensive biological data already gathered by CCC, this project will provide our host-community with the information needed to make effective and meaningful decisions regarding community-managed MPA’s.”
Coral Cay Conservation plans to use this project as a pilot for developing a more holistic approach to conservation that could be used at other expedition sites around the world.
Note to Editors
1. For further information contact Ms. Tanya Blackburn (PR and Communications Manager) via e-mail at tb@coralcay.org or telephone on +44 (0)20 8545 7718.
