Poor management of solid waste is seen as one of the causes for the decline in reef health in the Bay Islands. (Photo by Wendy Griffin.)

By WENDY GRIFFIN

February 14, 2000 -- The Bay Islands reef has the second highest diversity of corals in the Western Hemisphere after Jamaica, with 60 different species including wall, platform and soft corals, according to a study done prior to Hurricane Mitch.

In a recent seminar at Brick Bay, Roatan, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) project "Environmental Management" reported only 27 species of coral. Moreover, in the most popular dive spots less than 30 percent of the coral was alive, down from over 50 percent in less-visited Bay Islands sites.

According to studies for the IDB project and the proposed Mesoamerican Reef projects, the principal problems are: excess sedimentation, poor management of solid wastes, too many tourists for the carrying capacity of the reef, and Hurricane Mitch damage, especially to soft corals.

Sedimentation is caused by poorly constructed, unpaved roads that, when it rains, drain into the sea. As tourists watched the dolphin show at Anthony Key Resort in the rain, it was possible to watch the red silt move out across the dolphin pen. Silt traps could help avoid this problem.

Unpaved roads on the mainland and in the islands cause sediment to fall on the coral, threatening to suffocate it. (Photo by Wendy Griffin.)

The Bay Island ethnic federation NABIPLA is seeking funding to pave some roads to help control the problem. Bay Islanders believe that unstable beaches also contribute to the problem. NABIPLA wants a project to reforest coconuts to stabilize the beach, says NABIPLA president Unwin Ebanks.

Coconut trees have been dying due to lethal yellowing disease, and the hybrid coconuts brought in from Costa Rica to replace the Jamaican talls have not done very well. People are now trying to replant with a Jamaican coconut available from the Honduran Fund for Agricultural Investigation (FHIA).

Hurricane Mitch had mixed effects on sedimentation. In some places, the hurricane dusted sedimentation off the reef, reported Bay Islands Conservation Association (BICA) employees. In other places, it dumped more sediment on the coral. Sedimentation kills coral. BICA has initiated a program to study hurricane damage of coral near all three Bay Islands -- Utila, Guanaja and Roatan.

Roatan's municipal garbage dump is located on a wetland in Mud Hole. When it rains, run off from this dump leaches out on to the reef. The run off encourages the growth of algae, which is thought to worsen coral bleaching. In the area between Mud Hole and West Bay, the percentage of live coral is the lowest in the Bay Islands -- under 20 percent.

In the Bay Islands, latrines used to be built over the water. In the West End-Sandy Bay area, this type of latrine still exists, and is also associated with poor reef health. People and some hotels that have indoor plumbing also just run waste out to sea and on to the reef.

The IDB's Environmental Management project is supposed to develop other ways to manage garbage so that it does not kill the reef. This multi-million dollar project that has spent most of the last four years getting ready to work is also supposed to install sewage treatment plants on the islands, so that the increase in tourism will not mean the death of the reef. More progress is being made now that four international consortiums have been hired to run the project.

Included in this IDB project is a section on "catastro," which means determining who owns what land. The necessity of this kind of project was noticed immediately when Bay Islanders were told that the Roatan sewage treatment plant would be built as soon as the mayor's office of Roatan transferred land from SOPTRAVI to the water sewage treatment plant project.

The reason this raised eyebrows and blood pressure is that SOPTRAVI did not yet own the land, but rather the land around the Roatan airport still belonged to the Bay Islanders who have titles to this land. Some Bay Islanders had already lost land when the airport was built. As land in the Bay Islands is going for over $50,000 the manzana -- 0.7 hectare, these losses can be substantial. Issuing new land titles on top of existing land titles by municipal authorities has been an on-going complaint of Bay Islanders.

While garbage and sewage runoff is to be controlled by the proposed IDB project, the issue of how not to kill the reef through too much tourism is the task of BICA. This agency, however, has had a hard time implementing policies in the Sandy Bay-West End Reserve that Anthony's Key Resort (AKR) disagrees with, because AKR provides 50 percent of BICA's funding. When the two agencies disagree, AKR withholds its contributions, putting BICA in financial bind. Local people suggest that a different way to finance the park is needed, such as user fees.

There is tension between agencies on the islands regarding the IDB project, which did not contract local organizations like BICA or NABIPLA to do project tasks such as environmental education or coral identification and monitoring. There will be little increase in local knowledge when the project ends, if only foreign and Tegucigalpa consultants/staff are used.