A grooved brain coral (Diploria labyrinthiformis) colony in Roatán, Honduras. Rebecca Albright © 2025 California Academy of Sciences
Author: Nick Colin
Raise the Reef
In the wake of a catastrophic bleaching event, Central America’s first coral rearing lab inspires hope—and celebrates its first batch of babies.
Science is a lot more MacGyver than Mr. Wizard .
Yes, there are test tubes and pipettes and obscure units of measurement, but there is also swashbuckling on the high seas, breathtaking displays of athleticism, genius feats of engineering, nail-biting moments of suspense, and frequent plot twists.
Over the course of a recent 11-day expedition to Roatán, a small Honduran island in the Caribbean Sea, I came to understand that “scientist” is a wildly deficient descriptor for my Academy colleagues and their counterparts at Roatán Marine Park. They are chemists, contractors, mathematicians, adventurers. They are teachers, activists, politicians, world-builders.
And now they can add history-makers to the list: They just opened the first land-based coral-rearing facility in Honduras and Central America.v
Roatán Marine Park and Cal Academy staff prepare to cut the ribbon at the opening of Central America’s first coral rearing lab.
© Roatán Marine Park
From the Bay Area to the Bay Islands
On June 18, an all-female contingent of Academy coral scientists, aquarium biologists, and students journeyed to Honduras's Bay Islands to see a dream become a reality.
The Coral Restoration Center Roatán (CRCR) at Roatán Marine Park (RMP) was about to be dedicated with a ribbon-cutting ceremony, capping off a multi-year collaboration between the Academy and RMP that will serve as a model for community-based coral restoration in the region and around the world.
The CRCR itself was modeled after the groundbreaking work of the Academy’s own Coral Regeneration Lab (CoRL), which in 2018 became the first aquarium lab in the U.S. to spawn coral. It has gone on to successfully spawn corals every year since.
Andrea Godoy Mendoza and Bessy Aspra of RMP and Rebecca Albright (center) embrace at the opening of the CRCR.
© Roatán Marine Park
As the expedition’s in-house paparazzo, I saw firsthand the essential skills each core team member brought to the project: Rebecca Albright’s and Elora López-Nandam’s combined 30 years of coral research experience; Lisa Larkin-Mitchell’s aquarium and coral husbandry pedigree; and Andrea Godoy Mendoza’s and Carolina Elizabeth Rojas’ community connections and deep knowledge of local reef ecosystems.
Together, they transformed an ambitious blueprint into a brick and mortar facility, one with the potential to regenerate Roatán’s reefs.
Source:
Press release link: Leventa el Arrecife
Photo ©: Roatán Marine Park
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