Saving the World's Coral Reefs

Officially speaking, the legislation that declared Cordelia Banks a “Site of Wildlife Importance” was signed in the landlocked Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa. But the legislators actually made their decision far removed from their offices.

Last year, Jenny Myton, CORAL’s Honduras Field Manager, invited key government officials to visit Roatan. CORAL and our partners were seeking protections for Cordelia Banks and its healthy populations of endangered staghorn coral (Acropora cervicornis), and she believed that the site would sell itself to these critical decision-makers—if only they could see it for themselves.

A delegation headed by Josè Antonio Galdames, the Vice-Minister for the National Institute of Forest Conservation and Development, Protected Areas, agreed to travel to Jenny and learn more about this unique spot off of Roatan’s coast.

Before they could boat out to Cordelia and jump in the water, however, the group—with varying levels of swimming skills—took two weeks to learn how to snorkel and scuba dive. Eventually, all obtained their open water and advanced diver certifications.

Sure enough, when the Vice-Minister and his six colleagues descended into Cordelia’s shallow waters, they became some of its biggest advocates.

“You could see that they really got it,” Jenny said of the group’s eye-opening dive. “That experience did more for Cordelia than a hundred committee meetings in Tegucigalpa would have.”

The legislation, signed in May, is a critical first step toward managing and safeguarding one of the most spectacular natural resources on the Mesoamerican Reef. CORAL and our partners in Honduras are now seeking similar protections for the reefs off the mainland city of Tela.

“Despite having lived for many years in Roatan, I never had the opportunity to see Cordelia Banks,” Vice-Minister Galdames said. “It was through the perseverance of Jenny and Ian Drysdale [Jenny’s husband and fellow reef expert] that I was finally . . . able to see how beautiful it was and, at the same time, recognize the serious problems affecting our oceans.”

Political dives have a whole new meaning now!