Launched in 2011, the Adopt A Reef Program encourages stakeholders dependent on a healthy reef to monitor their favorite dive or snorkel site. Dive centers and marine guides that adopt sites can participate in one or all of ECOMAR's programs and can submit a monthly Coral Watch report, keep their reef clean of lionfish, and to report all sea turtles observed.
Adopt a Reef Activities
When you choose your sites to adopt, select your favorite sites!
Monitoring levels of coral bleaching help identify resilient reefs.
It's important to report whether or not you saw turtles on all dive or snorkel trips to the reef so we can measure abundance.
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ECOMAR needs your help to monitor reef sites !
Dive centers, marine guides, coastal residents, NGOs and park rangers are asked to adopt your favorite reef site, whether it is a shallow snorkel site or deeper dive site. If you can adopt more than one that will be great! We need sites of all depths monitored so that we can record changes on the reef over time. The first step in learning about the Belize Coral Watch Program is to learn how to identify healthy coral from bleaching or diseased coral and how to identify different growth forms of coral. Dive shops are also encouraged you to keep your sites clean of lionfish. Remember lionfish are the vacuum cleaners on the reef and eat all fish, up to 75% their body size so by removing them from your reef sites, these sites will support the traditional native fish! The number of sea turtles that frequent your reef site is also important to record as this data will be used in the annual Sea Turtle Census. This involves recording all dive or snorkel trips to the site, whether or not turtles are sighted, so we can estimate abundance of sea turtles in Belize. Once you Adopt A Reef you will receive a "Certification of Adoption" for the site and will receive training materials that will guide you through the steps required to monitor the reef. The materials will show you how to report your observations on each of the following programs. When you Adopt a Reef and submit reports on a monthly basis then we can track the health of the reef and compare it to other sites throughout Belize. Presented are maps of dive sites around Ambergris Caye, Turneffe and Lighthouse. If you are adopting reef sites in other areas please provide site details on the form below. 
In Belize many divers harvest lionfish to protect the native fish on their reefs.
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Adopt A Reef Today and Start Making a Difference one Reef at a Time!
Map courtesy White Sands Dive Shop
San Pedro Ambergris Caye
Map courtesy of Turneffe Flats - Blackbird Caye, Turneffe Atoll
Dive sites at Lighthouse Atoll.
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Adopt a Reef!Select sites from the maps on this page or send us your own sites!
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