Reef Ball Foundation/CR-USA Foundation/Marine Park of The Pacific's Paquaray High School Reef Ball Project
A Reef Ball Foundation project was done in Costa Rica the in April 2004. Reef Ball Foundation and the CR-USA Foundation are jointly funding the project thatl involved a school project deploying 90 Reef Balls with coral transplants. The Marine Park of the Pacific (Parque Marino Del Pacifico) conducted the project including a monitoring component in Dec. 2006.
Costa Rica - United States of America Fondation for Cooperaction was the main funder for the Marine Park of The Pacific's Parquary High School Reef Ball Project. Information on CR-USA found on their website at www.cr-usa.org. The Reef Ball Foundation presented the monitoring results from the project in Dec. 2006 to CR USA.
The project included a field trip for the High School kids to a wetland area where red mangrove propagules were identifed and planted as the students were educated about the importance of Red Mangroves to the marine ecosystem such as the Reef Balls they created and deployed.
There are several levels of monitoring occuring on this project. Local scuba divers and fishermen have been trained to do species by species fish counts which have been taken on a monthly basis over the 3 year project. Additional, the Reef Ball Foundation visited the project in Dec 2006 to check the quality of the Reef Balls produced and their stability on the choosen substrait. By any measure, all the monitorings have indicated a highly successful project.
The Marine Park of the Pacific held a conference for Reef Balls and maintains classrooms that link the Paquaray High School Students to marine studies.
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