TELA, Honduras, November 4, 2014 —  The Healthy Reefs for Healthy People Initiative (HRI) held a collaborative meeting to develop the 2015 Mesoamerican Reef Report Card on October 27-30, 2014 in Tela, Honduras. Over 60 marine conservation leaders from a variety of countries attended, taking advantage of this opportunity to share data, reflect on conservation achievements, and identify the next measurable steps to help advance conservation. Be on the look out for a list of these identified actions in the upcoming 2015 report card.

JRS is proud to support the Healthy Reefs Initiative and their annual partner meeting as well as the Reef Health Database (see JRS grant Meso-American Reef Health Database). The Mesoamerican Region is a hotspot of biodiversity and an important resource for tourism and fisheries livelihoods. HRI is an international partnership of almost 70 government agencies, donors, research institutions and NGO’s that strive to improve the management and health of the Mesoamerican Reef.

HRI partners have been collecting and sharing coral reef monitoring data for the past decade, which they used as the scientific foundation for drafting the 2015 report card. They have previously produced three other report cards on ecosystem health as well two Eco-Audits of management effectiveness and success. Last summer, they measured the health of over 200 coral reef sites in the four countries of the Mesoamerican Region.

HRI also launched its new online Mesoamerican Reef Health Database to help support regional partnerships. It includes a demonstration on how to query the database and produce graphs or map-based data visualizations. The database will include over 1,000 entries once the 2014 survey data comes online. HRI also has a new Online Data Entry Tool, which allows for more efficient data entry and analysis of the Atlantic and Gulf Rapid Reef Assessment coral reef health indicator data.

To find out more information, visit the HRI website.