Abstract

Healthy Reefs for Healthy People Initiative (HRI) is a globally unique international collaborative program of coral reef-focused research, management and conservation organizations dedicated to safeguarding the Mesoamerican Reef –MAR- in Mexico, Belize, Guatemala and Honduras. HRI and its partners work to improve management and decision-making by the region’s varied reef management organizations, thereby enhancing the reef’s health and resiliency. The MAR 2015 Re-port Card included 248 sites, surveyed for living coral cover, fleshy macroalgal cover, herbivorous fish biomass (parrots and surgeonfish) and commercially important fish biomass (snappers and groupers), which form a Reef Health Index score –RHI-. The 2015 regional RHI was ‘fair” (2.8 out of 5), showing an improvement over the last assessment. The 2016 Eco-Audit measured an increased rate of implementation of management actions, as compared to the previous years, with an overall“fair” score. The most progress has been made in the establishment of MPAs and no-take zones, while the lease pro-gress has been made in improving sewage treatment. The collaborative process of producing report cards on the health of the reef, followed by evaluation of management actions (Eco-Audits), provides a valuable system for catalyzing public awareness and achieving better reef management on a large scale. HRI has developed its successful process and suite of tools over the last decade in the MAR and now seeks to enlarge it’s geographic scope into other parts of the Caribbean, working with the GCRMN and others to promote standardization, data sharing, and readily useful reporting and communi-cations strategies.

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