Page 68 - Dive the Seas and More-2

Coral Reef Teacher’s Guide Benefits, Threats, and Solutions

tives sat down with lead scientists at the Insti- 30 years, coloni-zation of tra- ditional lands by
tute and drew up a three year project proposal cattle and timber barons and by campesinos prac-
for the rapid assessment and mapping of ticing slash and burn agriculture have threat-
Cuba’s major coral reefs. Pending both U.S. ened La Mosquitia lands.
and Cuban govern-ment approval, the project In addition, lobster boat fleets from the Bay Islands
will create a win-win situation. Cuban scien- of Roatan and Guanaja hire Miskito men as swim-
tists will gain a basic data-base inventory of mers and divers (Figure 3-17a). They provide them
their reefs and lay the groundwork for more with primitive equipment to dive at great depths
comprehensive long term research and re- for lob- sters, a dangerous job. Even though most
mediation. For American researchers, infor- of the money from this $30 million annual busi-
ma-tion about Cuba’s reefs will yield valuable ness is kept by boat captains and seafood proces-
data and permit invaluable comparison be- sors, the divers’ small incomes account for almost
tween two parallel Caribbean reefs affected by the entire cash economy of La Mosquitia.
dif- fering levels of de-velopment, use, manage-
ment, and other land-based variables. This economic dependence has a number of prob-
lems relating to the health of the divers, the
With educational, mooring buoy and research sustainability of the ecosystem, and the health
proj-ects currently in place in Negril, Jamaica, of the communities in which the divers live. Most
the Bays Islands of Honduras, and planned for div-ers have received no education in diver safety
Puerto Rico and Mexico, REEF RELIEF’s Ca- and regularly dive all day, every day on two-to-
ribbean Campaign is well underway. In work- three-week diving trips. Almost all of them suffer
ing with this group, I am con-stantly remind- some degree of decompression sickness or “the bends”,
ed that i t i s t hrough our own efforts that with symptoms ranging from numbness or
we make a differ- ence. Persistent, informed, pain, to incontinence and impotence, to paral-
honest actions, like the large hearts of the Cu- ysis and death. As lobsters be- come overhar-
ban people, speak a language capable of tran- vested (Fig-ure 3-17b), divers must search deeper
scending boundaries. El mar es sin fronteras. and deeper, increasing the likelihood of injury.
THE MISKITO OF LA MOSQUITIA, HON- Paralyzed divers are no longer able to work and
DURAS become a burden to their families and communi-
The Miskito people of La Mosquitia, Honduras have ties. Due to the climate and sanitary conditions of
lived for centuries along the Moskito Coast, La Mosquitia, paralyzed divers often succumb to
hunting in the forest, farming the land, infec- tions and die within a few years.
and fishing in the ocean. However, over the In 1995, Coral Forest started working with MO-
last PA-WI (Mosquita Pawisi, Development of Mosqui-
ta), a

Figure 3‐19. (a) Lobster boat used by Miskito divers, and (b) spiny lobster tails ready for market. (Photos: Jim Gollom)

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