Saving the World's Coral Reefs

The threats facing coral reefs are too significant to be combatted by one person, one organization, or even one strategy. That's why the cornerstone of CORAL's work is building partnerships. Over the last couple fo months, we've shared a few new examples of how we're helping to grow and provide tools for a growing network of coral advocates and thought you might be interested in hearing about them!

Since 2012, CORAL has been working on the Honduran island of Utila to bring together conservation groups, local government officials, fisherman, and other community members to collectively address conservation priorities. One of our first tasks was creating a shared bank account; we then provided the initial funding for what is now called the Utila Conservation Fund.

We are happy to share that the first Utila Conservation Fund project was launched in June. The team created informative reef etiquette posters that have been distributed to local businesses. The graphics aim to educate tourists about the beautiful underwater world that Utila boasts and inspire ownership and pride among local residents. If you’re traveling to Utila for your next dive adventure, be sure to check them out!

Also, as part of our 2011 Building Reef Resilience to Climate Change workshops, CORAL issued a series of microgrants to participants so they could implement local scale projects that would put what they learned into practice. Thailand participants Srisakul Piromvaragorn and James True started a small campaign with the Reef Guardian group in the province of Satun to encourage people to stop hunting parrotfish on Lipe Island.

Now, they have joined with other partners and scaled up their successful efforts to stop the selling of parrotfish in the cities. In July, several large supermarkets pledged to ban the selling of parrotfish in their stores!

We congratulate Srisakul, James, and all of our partners in Utila on their great work. We're so proud to have helped start and bolster these fantastic programs and so grateful to you for making them possible with your support.