The Nature Conservancy: Helping nature help itself

While coral reefs cover less than 1% of the Earth’s surface, they’re home to 25% of all marine fish species. Reefs form highly diverse and productive habitats that provide food, shelter, livelihoods and medicine to much of the world’s population. They also play a critical role in protecting coasts from hurricanes and tropical storms by acting as natural breakwaters. But storms can also harm reefs, for instance, by breaking and displacing coral colonies or smothering them in sand.

By threatening the health of reefs and other natural buffers against storms, overfishing, pollution and coastal development worsen coastal communities’ exposure to the hazards of flooding and shoreline erosion. With more than 60% of the world’s population living within 50 miles of a coast, this puts millions of individuals at risk of weather-related loss of life and property and whole communities at risk of grave damage to their infrastructure and economies.

The total economic value of the world’s reefs is estimated to be USD 9.9 trillion. The Mesoamerican Reef, which attracts tourists and fishers alike along the coasts of Belize, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico, is the world’s second largest and one of the most endangered.

To address the problem of storm-related damage to reefs, The Nature Conservancy (TNC) developed a training programme – the first of its kind – which mobilises coastal residents to help repair and restore the coral reefs that shield their communities from erosion, flooding and storms. Its multipronged approach to respond to storm-related damage comprises four components: a protocol that details the mitigating actions to be taken and the materials required before and after a storm hits; governance and support structures to coordinate and oversee the response; brigades of local volunteers to implement the response, supported by trainings for brigade members, trainers and other support staff; and mechanisms to finance the operation.

With the Swiss Re Foundation’s support, in 2017 The Nature Conservancy (TNC) began piloting this model in Quintana Roo, Mexico, training brigades of local volunteers to repair and restore storm-damaged portions of the Mesoamerican Reef and engaging local government authorities, NGOs and businesses in reef conservation. Working with Swiss Re’s Public Sector Solutions, TNC also explored parametric insurance – in which a pre-specified amount is paid out based on a triggering event such as a hurricane of at least a certain magnitude – as a way to finance post-storm response.

Having successfully proved the concept in Quintana Roo, TNC and its partners, notably MAR Fund, secured the buy-in of the federal governments and key local partners in all four countries bordering the Mesoamerican Reef. In 2019, again with the Foundation’s support, it was ready to scale up the approach to sites throughout the reef system, setting up governance and support structures and a response protocol along with the brigades and financing.

Our grants to TNC focused on the brigade training and development of the governance structures that are needed to protect natural infrastructure such as forests, mangroves and reefs.

The goal in the project’s first phase was to develop communities’ capacity for reef protection and repair in Quintana Roo and to share related knowledge and resources with public authorities, private sector partners and local NGOs. TNC was able to demonstrate that its trainings of first-response reef brigades are effective and that the brigades can deploy quickly with meaningful restoration results.

The goal of the project’s second phase was to build post-storm reef response capacities in all four countries and to disseminate the approach to actors in other reef-bordering regions to ensure that these capacities can be maintained and scaled further.

By October 2022, the following overall impacts had been achieved at participating sites, including new areas of Mexico:

• Governance structures established to guide post-storm response in Mexico, Belize and Honduras; in Guatemala this goal was met after the grant period
• 14 reef brigades set up
• 181 people trained in reef assessment and restoration, including 17 responders who are now also qualified to train others
• 495 kilometres of coastline protected

View the impact story here

Reef Resilience Network: The early warning and rapid response protocol

The copyright for all images displayed lies with Christian Bobst Photography.