Honduras
Camp Bay East End Roatan, Bay Islands, Honduras.
Cayos Cochinos national park is a group of two small islands and 13 more small coral cays situated 20 miles northeast of La Ceiba,
Tourism Industry in Honduras generate over $450 million annually. Most of it come from the scuba diving industry which is mainly concentrated in the Bay Islands.
Reef sharks play a major role in shaping Caribbean reef communities. As the top predators of the reef and indicator species for marine ecosystems, they help maintain the delicate balance of marine life in reef environments. They are highly valued for their meat, leather, liver oil, and fishmeal, which make them prone to overfishing and targeting. Yet, their importance for the tourism industry makes them more valuable alive than dead. (WWF 2016).
Roatan marine park executive director Giacomo Palavincini, releasing a rescue sea turtle.
Francisco Anchecta He is 27 years old, he is the oldest member of a group of young people from El Naranjo Community located along Cangrejal River called Cangrejal River and tourist activities attractions. They work with tourists within their territory.
Lobster It is one of the largest and most important fishery in Central America and a big part of it is consumed in the United States. According to the C/A Center for Marine Studies, Honduras alone exports over $40 million worth of lobster just to the U.S. market every year.
Most of the tourism income in Honduras come from Scuba diving industry. The Mesoamerican reef is the second largest reef on the planet.
Ian Drysdale from Healthy Reefs initiative Honduras coordinator, monitoring coral reef.
Sharks are very important for the environment and the tourism industry. In 2011 Honduras declared its waters to be a permanent sanctuary for sharks, making fishing for these species completely forbidden.
Roatan is the main cruise ship port in Honduras, with an average of 1 million cruise passengers per year.
There are 440 different known species of sharks in the world. They are classified in eight orders. They are very different from each other. Some sharks are few inches small, some others like whale sharks can reach 12 mt of length. Some of them are oviparous and some are viviparous. In some sharks has been observed the Intrauterine cannibalism. Some sharks mast swim in order to breath, some other don’t. Sharks are very interesting and fascinated creatures. They have been around for 450 million years. A very long evolution process that made them a perfect swimming machine.
Reef sharks are often unintentionally caught by unregulated and illegal fishing practices that cannot distinguish the reef shark from the fishers’ targeted species. Every year, hundreds of reef sharks are injured or killed as bycatch. (WWF 2016)
