Coral Cay Conservation

Protection, restoration and sustainable use of the oceans and tropical forests www. coralcay.org

Coral Cay Conservation (CCC) is a UK based marine conservation organisation, and since 1986 has advanced awareness and marine policy for the future prosperity of tropical coastal communities in developing countries. Several internationally notable accomplishments including the creation of the UNESCO World Heritage Site in Belize; The Danjugan Marine Reserve and Wildlife Sanctuary for Negros, Philippines; The Limasawa Community Managed Marine Protected Area for Southern Leyte and the development of 12 no-take marine parks around Sogod Bay in the Philippines.

Our success is based on a holistic approach which is tri-fold; scientific data gathering, community outreach and education and capacity building. Whether it is informing the volunteers who join our expeditions or the local communities in developing countries, awareness and education is a cornerstone to environmental sustainability. With our volunteer expeditions, field staff, strategic partnerships and science expertise, we have been able to influence marine conservation in ways that preserve and protect one of our most valuable natural resources – the oceans.

Coral Cay Conservation (CCC) expeditions focus on education in the areas of environmental management, community development, scientific survey techniques and SCUBA diving certification in order to understand, protect and manage these valuable but dwindling resources. Volunteers come from all walks of life with an interest in conservation but not necessarily the experience or background. As pioneers of the ‘citizen science’ approach to volunteer-based conservation, we use volunteers who join our expeditions as our most valuable asset to develop marine policy. CCC trains volunteers to carry out baseline surveys in the field with the expertise of staff and scientific advisors. A good example of survey monitoring would be to assess the effectiveness of marine parks at preserving reef health and increasing fish stocks for local communities. When necessary, other, specific surveys are carried out including rapid reef assessments, sedimentation assays, mangrove surveys and the impacts of severe weather events such as hurricanes or tsunami’s on coral reefs. These are often undertaken at the request of national governments or project partners.

With the gathered information from our trained volunteers, we identify areas where the conservation effort of the local communities can best be used, as well to highlight key biodiversity hot spots in need of conservation. Collected data is compiled into user-friendly reports that allow resource users and managers, such as fishermen and local government officers to make decisions regarding natural resource use. Reports are made available to institutions wishing to incorporate the information in their own research. Local community stakeholders are trained so that they can collect data and are actively involved in synthesis. As a result of CCC’s collaboration with them they will be able to continue these activities after CCC has moved on and will therefore be able to continuously use data gathered and evaluated on an ongoing basis to inform adaptive MPA management processes. We believe that benefits to local communities are maximised where local resources and people are employed in order to minimize out-of-country management and overhead costs; this value is central to all of our operations. Thus the long term aim of CCC is optimal use of existing resources and to conduct capacity building programmes in a way which ensures that indigenous communities and partner organisations are not overly dependent on long-term support. Project sites and activities make full use of local resources and people; we employ local field staff on project sites and use local procurement as far as possible.