[Coral-List] High Risk that shadow projects may affect resilience of coral reefs

Phanor Hernando Montoya Maya phmontoyamaya at gmail.com
Sat Jun 26 15:37:16 UTC 2021


Dear Nohora,
The coral-list is not the right channel to direct personal attacks. Any
differences you and I have, let´s solve them privately not in a
public forum. But before I leave you, I am obliged to clarify a few things
about your latest email (below):
1. You requested feedback about the project in Colombia, I provided so. If
you or anyone else wants to know about the one millión corals for Colombia
project or any of the related work, please let me know and I will try to
answer or link you with the right source (researcher, technical report, or
peer-review paper).
2. The 500 people who attended Reef Futures 2018 and heard my words, are
aware of the context of the discussion and message I was trying to convey.
3. Neither myself nor the organization I run, Corales de Paz, has received
funding from the government or any of its dependencies in the last 5 years
since my return to Colombia. I wish I had been successfully funded as we
would have sped up the participatory coral reef monitoring and restoration
efforts in Colombia.
4. Lastly, remember that libel and defamation are punishable by law in
Colombia and elsewhere.
Respectfully,


*Phanor H Montoya-Maya, Ph.D.*Director Corales de Paz
Certified Ecological Restoration Practitioner #0514
Research Associate CEMARIN

Tel: +57 313 652 1198
Email: phmontoya at coralesdepaz.org, phmontoyamaya at gmail.com
Organisation: www.coralesdepaz.org

On Fri, 25 Jun 2021 at 12:00, <coral-list-request at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
wrote:

> Date: Thu, 24 Jun 2021 12:59:45 -0500
> From: Nohora Galvis <icri.colombia at gmail.com>
> To: Coral-List <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
> Subject: [Coral-List] High Risk that shadow projects may affect
>         resilience      of coral reefs
> Message-ID:
>         <
> CAO+JPTFaZbvddeMxUWc2f5mcO2iY2O62BkfhLi3mWYHB2dZ58g at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
>
> Dear Colleagues,
>
> As mentioned in the most recent messages about the Colombian
> Government large scale restoration projects based on coral breaking,
> the main causes of coral reef degradation in governmental protected
> areas have not been solved and the promise to save coral reefs by
> breaking coral colonies, may add to the local factors that affect the
> resilience of coral reefs.
>
> Phanor Montoya wrote; ?Although Colombia has National Natural Parks
> and marine protected areas that protect almost 90% of its coral reefs,
> no clear signs of reef recovery have been observed after significant
> degradation due to natural disturbances?. explained by the continuous
> impact of human actions within MPAs?. Since the ICRS 2000, I have
> presented findings of low management effectiveness, that is why now in
> the Observatory of Coral reefs, we are providing warnings to the top
> decision makers based on early alerts within our Citizen science
> Program to better prevent further coral reef direct destruction by
> anchoring, dredging, military bombing, illegal fishing, hurricanes
> etc. that break coral colonies. Besides, other local threats caused by
> pollution, sedimentation, invasive species and contagious diseases
> among other local causes of degradation are not tackled by the
> managers. Of course, being sincere is not popular and top decision
> makers are willing to pay for shadow projects that promise to save
> coral reefs without controlling local degradation causes.
>
> We got skeptical about the restoration projects of Phanor when he
> shared during the plenary of Reef Futures 2018, how he convince
> funders of restoration projects by ?praising their ego?. The Colombian
> President and Environment Minister and the chief of CORALINA liked
> that and Phanor has been successful fully funded at international and
> national level to scale up his plans by saying that the Hurricane Iota
> category 5, did not cause damage to the coral reefs, nor dredging is
> detrimental for bottom habitats of Seaflower and MPAs have not
> difference with other MPAs of the Caribbean Sea, which contradicts
> what he says at the beginning of his message about degraded Colombian
> MPAs and intense climate change impacts.
>
> The facts are that INVEMAR did presented a report after Hurricane Iota
> presenting negative impacts till 12m deep
>
> https://www.semana.com/medio-ambiente/articulo/arrecifes-coralinos-de-providencia-gravemente-afectados-por-el-paso-de-iota/58079/
>  and Dredging the Providencia Channel got license in 2018 to removed
> >308000m3 to deposit the sediment, several kilometers closer to dive
> sites and coral reef areas in Seaflower. This governmental
> contradictions are the ones that make fishers communities to protest
> against the government decisions, as they have not seen  the
> investment on solutions to their basic needs for shelter and food
> security related to the rebuilding of Providencia Island and they have
> to go further to fish at the boundaries with Nicaragua. In fact, the
> scenario after Hurricane Iota Category 5 that destroys 98% of the
> infrastructure was an opportunity to rebuild the small town in a
> sustainable way more environmental friendly to avoid further local
> pollution. However, only two new houses have been built in seven
> months
> https://www.portafolio.co/economia/solo-2-casas-se-han-construido-en-san-andres-y-providencia-tras-iota-552797
>
> Coral Reefs Optimism should be based on the assumption that coral
> reefs must not be degraded any further, at least locally.
> Nevertheless, the Colombian Government stipulated that for any
> proposed project (e.g. Dredging) which is detrimental to the ecosystem
> integrity, provision be made for the realization (or the financing) of
> a shadow project. These shadow projects as local scale have been
> implemented but different researchers in the past decade. We agree
> with innovative and interesting proposal from other researchers that
> will study the spawning / recruitment success
>
> https://www.facebook.com/CarmabiMarineBiologicalStation/photos/a.573897512668909/4241375142587776/
> .
> However, the focus of the Colombian Government is now to scale up the
> breaking coral colonies without stopping local degradation causes.
>
> We are writing an official letter to the Ministry of Environment to
> request not to develop such a project on the Hope Spot Capurgana-Cabo
> Tiburon Hope Spot (Our Resilient case study) as there, it is still
> coral natural recruitment within a bottom-up protection scheme and
> scientific reports of the best healthy Acropora cover. We recommend to
> leave it as a control site. Although it is not yet included within the
> National Park Systems, fishers from other governmental protected areas
> have learned that this is the most resilient coral reef of the
> Colombian Continental Caribbean and are now increasing the fishing
> pressure in this resilient coral reef area. Our local observers of the
> reefs are removing big nets that have been placed illegally so in that
> sense we do request the Navy to support the local scuba diver
> operators and artisanal fishers that help to improve governance.
>
>
> --
> Cordial saludo,
>
> Nohora Galvis
>
> Directora,
> Observatorio Internacional de Arrecifes Coralinos
> Fundaci?n ICRI Colombia
> Coordinadora Red Internacional de Observadores Voluntarios del Arrecife
> Follow us on:
> Facebook.com/ICRI.COLOMBIA
> Twitter @ArrecifesCoral e @ICRIcolombia
> Youtube ICRI Colombia
> https://icri-colombia.es.tl/
>
>
>
>


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