Coastal Policy Journal Update #2

Jennifer Keck

Monday, January 21, 2002

No student groups this week. I have taken the next few days to finish up another project that has become part of my unofficial duties. This museum chronicles the cultural history of the Bay Islands through text, maps, artwork, and artifacts including clay pottery, copper beads, and jade ornaments of the Payan Indians. After receiving visitors for almost 10 years some of the text and displays are in direneed of a makeover. I have spent time already printing out the new text and mounting it onto poster board. Now I need to open up the exhibits and replace the old with the new. Some of the history that the museum chronicles is the role of fishing in the Bay Islands. It is the seafaring history of the Bay Islands that most interests me as a biologist. While it is not possible to establish a precise origin, there is evidence that fishing has been an activity on the islands for over hundreds of years. This has given rise to a cultural tradition with social economic and environmental impacts.

Today, there are 2 types of fishing that occur in the Bay Islands department; traditional subsistence fishing and modernized fishing. In the first, small boats called cayucos or dories are used to exploit areas close to shore, mainly the lagoons and reefs. In the second case, the boats are larger and motorized and exploit areas further out to sea, away from the reefs. In 70% of the cases fishing activities involve the use of the fishing line. A small percentage of fishermen use fish traps and nets and while illegal, others still use spear guns or harpoons. Unfortunately, there is not nearly the bounty there used to be on the reefs. If you ask any fishermen, you hear the same story, "the fishing is in bad shape". They go out for longer only to bring in smaller fish, in size and number. But when this is all they have known, all their fathers and their fathers' fathers have known, how do you tell him to stop. "Give the reef a break? Who will feed my kids while I stop fishing?" The biggest problem is education (lack of) and it starts with the kids.

Tuesday, January 22, 2002

I ran into town to pick up my mail and decided to stop by BICA &endash; the Bay Islands Conservation Association, which has its office in Coxen Hole. I really want to piece together the history of marine conservation and management on the islands &endash; how it got started and when. I am somewhat embarrassed by the little that I do know being in my position for so long but the information is not out there and readily available and even the people you would think would have the answers do not. I have some information in my files but most of what we have records of is baseline studies, marine monitoring project results, etc. Irma Brady, the director of BICA was not in, but I was able to look through some material that was somewhat helpful. Basically it all boils down to this:

Despite all of the past laws, regulations, decrees, initiatives and great "first steps" the department of the Bay Islands has been poorly served by the central government and the agencies with primary responsibility for the environment and for protection of areas designated for conservation of natural resources have a very weak presence in the Bay Islands.

Wednesday, January 23, 2002

I decided to try to visit the office of SAFEGE, the French consulting engineers hired to do the marine monitoring for PMAIB. After learning a little more about the past efforts on the islands I was very eager to find out more about what the future will hold. I was hoping to speak with Enoc Burgos. Enoc is the Director of Natural Resources for the project and he speaks some English. Enoc was not available when I arrived. In fact the office was quite deserted. I have made arrangements to speak with him in February as he is on the mainland until them. While I was there I had a look around the office. I was very impressed with a wall-sized poster of the Bay Islands taken via satellite. I couldn't help but wonder where the money came for this mighty display. I picked up some brochures that were available to the public. Some actually had some English translations. When I read through the brochures later this afternoon at my office I was excited to find several websites that were available. Just the break I needed. Unfortunately all three websites were no longer in service. This is typical of the dead ends my efforts have produced in the past.

Thursday, January 24, 2002

Bad Weather &endash; no diving. Spent the day in the office doing work, e-mailing professors to plan upcoming student group programs and working on the museum displays.

Friday, January 25, 2002

Another bad day of weather keeps me inside again. The museum is now finished and looking quite refreshed. Now its time to tackle the education classroom, a much larger undertaking. Not only do the old displays need a makeover, new ones need to be created. Part of my goal is to create a display that will be titled "Conservation Efforts" or "The future of our reefs" etc etc. I want to discuss the very history of marine policy and conservation that I am trying to piece together along with the role of BICA and our role as a monitoring and education facility. I want to display information about or monitoring efforts and the results of our studies.

Saturday, January 26, 2002

A break in the weather and just in time, Dr. Roy Houston arrived today. Dr. Houston is a professor at Loyola Marymount in Los Angeles. I have known him for almost four years. He came to Roatan on sabbatical the first year I began working at RIMS and helped me with the reef monitoring. Now he plays a very active role in RIMS, visiting several times throughout the year. He brings student groups for two weeks in the summer and stays 6 weeks after. This trip was business. He is helping our facility to become an AAUS (Academy of Underwater Sciences) facility. Roy is also on my masters committee so I was able to discuss my progress to date.

Sunday, January 27, 2002

Today I went out to fix the temperature loggers again. I had gone out several weeks ago to download the data. This is normally done at the end of every month but because I was leaving for several months they had been out awhile without maintenance. I had to clean the algae off the loggers before the data could be downloaded. The 3 m logger was missing. It was probably physically removed during one of the strong northers that blew through in November. The 20m one also did not download for some reason. Last week when the 20-meter logger didn't download I brought it back with me. Today I was able to bring a replacement out and install a new station at 3 meters for a new logger. The other loggers were doing great.

Monday, January 28, 2002

This afternoon, a German couple brought a young Hawksbill turtle to RIMS. The turtle was very healthy, and probably about 2 years old or so judging form the length of the carapace. This is the second time I have met this couple. It was under the same circumstances that we met the first time. They own a small cabin in Sandy Bay about a kilometer to the east of our facility. A fisherman who was fishing inside the reserve had caught the turtle earlier that day. The couple saw the turtle in his boat when he pulled up to shore along with several lobster and conch. There was also a spear gun in the boat. They bought the turtle from the fishermen and brought it to RIMS. I took the turtle up to an area between West End and West Bay to release it. This area is constantly busy with dive boats, which act as reef stewards. As a result very little fishing occurs here. This is also the most likely area within the reserve to observe hawksbill turtles.

What do you do? Of course the couple saved the turtle from early death but at the same time, now this fishermen has found a new quick source of money. "Hey, if I go find and catch a turtle I can get some gringos to buy it from me for more money than I make all week on fishing". So by buying the turtle from him, it is giving him reason to go out and try to find another one. Where are the marine reserve patrols?

Tuesday, January 29, 2002

It is time to take another series of pictures of the photostations. Pictures are taken usually 2x per year at 6-month intervals. The last set of pictures was taken in August. Before the pictures can be taken, I need to go out to each site, relocate the photostations and clean off the markers and replace any markers that might have been removed. This is a fairly painless but sometimes frustrating process. I have made a map of each series of photostations on a dive slate. Stations are separated by a certain number of fin kicks. Unfortunately it's a little tricky to find the site for several reasons. 1. If the stakes that mark the station boundaries are still there, after 6 months they are quite well camouflaged with algal overgrowth. 2. Sometimes the stakes have been removed. Most of the time, this is due to unaware divers from other operators that think the stakes shouldn't be there. Although they are remarked periodically have found nothing that is permanent. Eventually any writing indicating that the equipment is part of a monitoring project is lost under the overgrowth. 3. Because so much change has occurred since the study was initiated, the photostations never look the same as they did the time before and the time before that. So today, we have a boat, I have a buddy and we'll try to get two of the three monitoring sites cleaned and remarked. The sites we'll do today are Pillar Coral and Fish Den.

Wednesday, January 30, 2002

Cleaned and remarked the photostations at Tuk's Treasure

Thursday, January 31, 2002

Went back to Fish Den and Pillar Coral to take pictures now that the stations have been remarked. At each study site, a set of ten photostations were placed at a depth of approximately 12m(+ 1) meters at random distances and compass headings, running parallel to the reef crest. Each photostation consists of two stakes driven into the substrate to position a quadrapod equipped with a Nikonos Camera and 2 strobes. The camera is mounted on a quadrapod frame constructed from PVC pipe. At each station, the frame is aligned with the stakes marking the quadrat locations. Two color slides are taken at each photostation in both the "a" and "b" (above and below the stake) orientation, for a total of 20 photos per reef site. The photographed area is approximately 0.33 m2.

Analysis of photographs includes: genus and species identification, when possible, of all scleractinian corals, colony number, projected surface area and a semi-quantitative bleaching assessment. Projected surface area (PSA) is used to estimate colony size. To measure PSA, slides are projected at 1/6 of the actual size onto grid paper with a 0.25 cm resolution. The living borders of each colony are traced. The traced areas are measured and converted back into actual size. The measured PSA is then used to estimate the total percentage of hard coral cover in each quadrat as well as the contribution of each species to the total percent coverage. Individual colony changes between time periods can than be determined directly.

Friday, February 1, 2002

Took pictures at Tuk's Treasure. In September of 1996 when the first set of photos was taken, total hard coral cover per quadrat averaged 32% + 16%), based on the PSA analysis of all 60 quadrats. By October 1998, a slight decrease in hard coral to 29 + 16% was observed. This change was not significant. At the time of the October 1998 data collection, two weeks prior to Hurricane Mitch, massive coral bleaching was observed. One year later, in September 1999, hard coral cover had decreased significantly to 20 + 14% (range 0 to 63%). This decline represents approximately 38% coral mortality. It will be interesting to see what results the analysis of the last three years of data will reveal. While the severity of the degradation had declined, there has been very little improvement or regeneration qualitatively speaking. It is this information that will form the core of my master's thesis.

Saturday, February 2, 2002

Day off

Sunday, February 3, 2002

Day off