Have you, or someone close to you, ever asked the question, "What can I do, with my own hands, to help ensure a sustainable world for future generations?"
INTEGRA MAREis an altruistic, hands-on Citizen Science movement anyone who cares about healthy oceans and healthy local food production can take part in.
Integra Mare
Integra Mare (IM) offers an integrated land and sea-based outreach program for adventurous people wishing to make a positive difference in the world utilizing any combination of their time, talent, and treasure applied to three pillars of urgently needed contributions to restore and revitalize planet earth's biosphere, starting with the MesoAmerican Barrier Reef System (MBRS), second longest barrier coral reef system in the world. In total, these IM 'voluntourism' missions will encompass over 1200 return miles, by sea, and land, from Caribbean Mexico to Honduras, and continuing south, following a distributed chain of patch and fringe coral reefs, to the turnaround point in Caribbean Panama. Included in the restoration-revitalization missions will be stops at each of Integra Mare's seven national operational bases on land, in Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama.
On-board sailing, motor-sailing, and diving opportunities, including discounted PADI certifications and breath-hold freedive training, as well as local land-based food production and seafood harvesting projects are available for hands-on citizen science volunteers in any one, or all, of the '3 Pillars' of hands-on citizen-science activities:
CoralCareCorps - installing artificial coral reefs, utilizing proven, breakthrough technology; producing immediate results by ensuring fully functional and viable coral reef, typically within 2 years of installation.
PermaCultureCorps - transferring proven permaculture technologies and techniques, through interactive design of sustainable agri- and aqua- culture projects for ownership and implementation by peoples of affected coastal communities, propagating from established national land operational bases.
ILEADCorps - Invasive Lionfish Eco-Action Discovery Corps, activating citizen science to control and manage the most extensive marine invasive species plague in human history: the Indo-Pacific Lionfish, whose population explosion in the Caribbean, along the entire length of the MBRS, threatens the native marine biomass, biodiversity and existance of the coral itself. Basic scientific data on invasive-lionfish location and population densities of both invasive-lionfish and the over 70 species of marine fish and crustaceans they prey upon, currently unavailable to conventional science due to funding constraints, will be gathered by IM citizen science volunteers at frequent intervals, along the entire length of the MBRS. This valuable data will then be given to conventional science and marine resource management agencies in order to better inform critical coral reef conservation and fisheries management protocols and decision-making processes, and as a catalyst for further development of national lionfish control and management programs in each of the seven countries.
To learn more about Integra Mare, The Three Pillars, and to inquire about earning your stripes as a 'Vigilante del Mar' on one of IM's upcoming missions, email: [email protected] (IM website in development)
Integra Mare - for the greater good, now - and for all time.