Introduction to the Honduras projects

The Honduras project was set up in 2006 initially to assess the effectiveness of the management strategy of Cusuco Forest National Park and to monitor the Marine Protected Area around the island of Cayos Cochinos.  Long-term biodiversity sets are collected for a range of taxa and this data will be used to secure future protection for both the forest and marine sites.   The Operation Wallacea project in Honduras is producing one of the largest biodiversity assessment datasets in the Americas.

Terrestrial projects

The forest research programme is run in conjunction with a Honduran NGO called ESAC (Expediciones y Servicios Ambientales de Cusuco). The purpose of this science programme is to provide data on socio-economics, forest structure and biodiversity to assess the performance of the protected-area management. With the advent of funding mechanisms such as REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries), these annual biodiversity surveys have taken on an even more important role.  The purpose of REDD is to provide a marginal cost advantage for governments and communities to protect their forests rather than allow deforestation, thereby protecting their carbon sequestration value.  REDD funding is intended not just to protect the carbon value of the forests but also to protect its biodiversity and provide funds for poverty alleviation in surrounding communities.

Long-term biodiversity datasets can be used to set additional biodiversity-related criteria for receiving REDD payments.  There are few forests in Honduras that have the level of biodiversity data that has been collected in Cusuco, which places the Park in prime position to receive such funding.  The data collected to date in Cusuco have demonstrated that the Park contains 6 species of amphibian found only within the Park boundaries and a further 10 species of amphibian in the IUCN threatened categories.  In addition, a new genus of tree (Hondurodendron) has recently been described from the Park. In 2010, these data were compiled into a Climate, Community and Biodiversity Alliance report to make the Cusuco forests potentially eligible for REDD funding.

Marine projects
The marine research programme is run in conjunction with the Honduran Coral Reef Foundation (HCRF) for the Cayos Cochinos sites and the Coral View Research Centre and Bay Island Conservation Association (BICA) on Utila.  Surveys are being completed on the reefs around the Cayos Cochinos Islands that is a Marine Protected Area (MPA) but where there are no mangroves to act as fish nurseries, and the reefs and mangroves around Utila. The main research objective of this programme is to complete annual reef fish and coral community surveys using stereo video for the reef fish and video transects for the benthic communities.  There are also unique reptile species found on Utila and the Cayos Cochinos Islands and long-term ecological data sets are being gathered on these populations.