June 1st was World Reef Day and, in light of this, we bring you some reflections on our beloved project “Citizen-Science Based Evaluation of Coral Reef Recovery Post-Hurricane on the Island of Providencia” in the Archipelago of San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina in the Colombian Caribbean. This project focuses on the restoration and conservation of the coral reefs around Providencia, and on involving the community through fishermen who become “citizen scientists”.

The objective of the project was to evaluate and recover the coral reef through both natural methods and interventions in the restoration processes, due to the damage caused by the passage of the Category 5 Hurricane Iota on the islands of Providencia and Santa Catalina in November 2020. In the first instance, the project focused on training selected fishermen, with the aim of providing tools for innovation and appropriation of the territory through citizen science.

In a joint effort between entities such as the Old Providence McBean Lagoon National Natural Park, Corales de Paz and CEMarin, training was carried out in terms of coral gardening processes and techniques such as monitoring, planting, transplants and photomosaics, with these being the main achievements of the project.

We particularly highlight the coordination of the project carried out by Josselyn Bryan from Corales de Paz. Josselyn is a Raizal marine biologist and, on behalf of the entire team, received a special recognition from the Colombian Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development at its “Green Carpet” event in September 2022.

We are delighted to share these results and hope you enjoy these wonderful images from our citizen scientists’ fieldwork!

If you want to learn more about this incredible project we invite you to visit our Facebook and Instagram where we have covered several important moments for this initiative.