The Roatan Marine Park treated us to a series of workshops around marine park management. We learned so much in such a short time, from the history of Roatan and the Roatan Marine Park, to reef ecology, water quality, and the challenges of environmental law and its enforcement. James Foley, the director of the marine park, made quite a bit of time for us out of his already too busy schedule to arrange all of these workshops and lead many of them. We met all of the marine park staff and learned about what they do, from Grazzia and her educational program to Nick in installation. Amber Little, the volunteer coordinator, was with us every step of the way ensuring that our experience was totally smooth. We enjoyed the many points of view, which also included Tina, a graduate student working on water quality, Randy, who works for our second host, Lawson Rock Resort, and Denny, a local fisherman with an inside view of the politics and challenges facing both island fisherman and the fish they seek. Together these many perspectives gave us an understanding of the complexity of marine management.
Prepped by several days of workshops (with scuba diving in between), we were nearly ready to start on our actual project, installing a snorkeling trail at Lawson Rock. A snorkeling trail is akin to a nature trail with numbered markers corresponding to some sort of pamphlet explaining what you might be looking at. Similar to a nature trail, the snorkeling trail is meant to educate the person following it, which hopefully increases their appreciation of it and decreases their likelihood to destroy it. The snorkeling trail has a few other goals: to keep snorkelers in a particular area, out of boating and fishing lanes, and to keep them from damaging the habitat accidentally by standing on our kicking the sensitive coral. Our chief task of the week was to plan where to install the series of buoys that would constitute the trail and then to actually install them. It may not sound like too much written in brief like that, but there is actually quite a bit that needs to be understood before one is ready to go ahead and start installing, not the least of which is how to tie and splice the rope.
First we had to learn what might be the best area to place the buoys and why, which entails considering all of the various stakeholders in the project. James talked quite a bit about stakeholders over the course of the week, as he spends most of his time negotiating among varying and frequently oppositional stakeholders. To give us a sense of all of the players one has to consider on any given project, James set us up with several different case study role-playing experiences. In groups we were given a role to play, such as a local fisherman, the Department of Fisheries, the Department of the Environment, the Tourism Office, the Developer, or the Port Authority, among others. We were then given a map and project proposal. Sometimes within our own group and other times between groups we had to propose and negotiate a plan to install the project: a shrimp farm, a marine park, tourism development, cruise ship docks, and others. The Marine Park staff seemed to especially enjoy these parts of the workshops as we all got a taste for what it’s like to live in their world with unexpected incoming news and conflicting stakeholders. The rest of us enjoyed these role plays very much as well- at times they became quite heated!
Finally we were practiced to the point of readiness to take on the real project, planning and installing the actual snorkel trail at Lawson Rock Resort. We chose sites for future projects as well including 2 swim platforms and a dive site. In twos and threes we came up with plans and presented them to the whole group. We discussed the pros and cons of each set of ideas and finally agreed on the best plan. The next day we each put our own buoy together, then set out with Nick and Amber in kayaks with our snorkeling gear and installed them. We even finished up early that day. I was incredibly impressed with the timing of it all. We learned a significant amount of information and then were able to apply it directly in a real and meaningful project. On our off days we completed our scuba training and then continued on diving with Coconut Tree Divers, who were so helpful and accommodating.
Many people came together to make this trip possible. First of all, I want to thank the parents of all of my teen travelers. As a parent myself I consider it an honor to have been entrusted with the care of your children. It is no small thing to send your child off scuba diving far away in a third world country. Of course, you all know how responsible and mature they are. They were all absolutely ready for this and wonderful traveling companions.
