Local Hotels Saving the Sacred Mayan Underground Rivers

The recent Report Card on the health of the coral reefs that make up the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef indicates that the situation is dire. According to the Report Card, which rated the 326 reef sites in the Barrier Reef system for both ecological health as well as integrity of the ecosystem services that the reef provides to local communities, only 6 percent are rated as being in ‘good’ condition and none are rated ‘very good.’ The vast majority – 89 percent – of the remaining reef sites are in ‘poor’ to ‘fair’ condition. Their successful recovery depends almost entirely on the effectiveness of reef management by public and private sectors.
The Report Card cites tourism as one of the top contributors to poor reef health, posing such threats as coastal ecosystem destruction, water pollution, and marine habitat degradation. Yet, tourism can also provide as much as 90 percent of economic activity and income for local communities in many parts of the Mexican Caribbean. To ensure the long-term sustainability of tourism, it must be well planned and managed for the benefit of both human well-being and biodiversity.
In response to these threats and opportunities, three internationally recognized conservation organizations (the Coral Reef Alliance, Conservation International, and Amigos de Sian Ka’an) launched the Mesoamerican Reef Tourism Initiative (MARTI) in 2006. Our mission is to integrate lasting good environmental practices into the region’s tourism development and operations at all scales in its three main sectors – hotels, cruise lines, and marine tour operators – by 2016. MARTI is now the Mesoamerican Reef region’s largest and most ambitious initiative to tackle the threats posed by mass tourism.
Transforming the tourism industry into a positive force for healthy reefs and vibrant communities in the Mesoamerican Reef region will require participation and commitment from a wide range of actors beyond the three MARTI founding organizations. We will therefore also begin structural transformation of MARTI over the next two years from a project-based initiative into a collaborative multi-stakeholder platform. These structural changes will increase stakeholder ownership in MARTI by giving NGOs, private sector leaders, and other key actors a greater role in MARTI’s management and operation.