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Little Cayman Hope Spot: Celebrating a Brilliant Example of Successful Marine Conservation

Cayman Islands (June 6th , 2020)

The smallest of the Cayman Islands is home to fewer than 200 people – and yet at roughly 10 miles long by one mile wide, Little Cayman has become known as a magnificent oasis in the Caribbean. Small but mighty, the island shines as a flourishing example of what protection for marine ecosystems can look like when conservation is prioritized. The island’s colorful reefs are considered some of the healthiest in the Caribbean and support a rich ecosystem bursting with creatures like sea turtles, sharks, stingrays and a rainbow of corals. Behind the scenes of the conservation of Little Cayman’s brilliant marine life is Central Caribbean Marine Institute (CCMI). Their resilience, restoration and assisted evolution research efforts examine the features that enable corals to persist through time, despite changing conditions.…

Posted in .Homepage, Dr. Sylvia Earle, Featured, mission blue, Partner Stories, Uncategorized |

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Unlocking the Secrets of Coral Reef Resilience

Here’s a word from our new partners at the Central Caribbean Marine Institute!

At the Central Caribbean Marine Institute (CCMI) we are creating a hopeful future for coral reefs, vibrant ecosystems that have been the heart of healthy oceans for more than 200 million years. CCMI is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1998 to protect the future of coral reefs through research, conservation, and education.
In 2005 we opened the flourishing Little Cayman Research Centre (LCRC). At the groundbreaking for the center, HRH The Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex, and CCMI Royal Patron dedicated the site “to sustain biodiversity so that the children of the world may forever discover the treasures of the sea.”
The reefs around Little Cayman truly are treasures of the sea and they offer insight for coral reefs globally.…

Posted in Featured, Partner Stories |
Summits for Science: Young Explorer Invites You to Seamounts of Anegada Passage

By Megan Cook
The ocean is home to many of the wonders of our planet – 72% of them to be exact. The deepest valleys, highest peaks, largest plains, and largest animal to ever live are all in our salty blue backyard right now. There are also mountains underwater – lots of mountains! Vast ridgelines peel around the world like zippers closing the boundaries of our ocean plates, and tens of thousands of seamounts dot the seafloor. Seamounts are isolated mountains, either active or extinct volcanoes jutting up from the seafloor, building some of the most unique and poorly understood ecosystems on our planet.
Rising sometimes miles off the seafloor, seamounts are hotspots for biodiversity in our oceans.  In the same way the world’s largest ball of yarn becomes a worthy detour to disrupt the monotony of a Midwestern road trip, the variation in topography and habitat structure of a seamount attracts life.…

Posted in Partner Stories |

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