Restore the Varadero Reef Hope Spot in Colombia

Over the past few months, our work in Varadero Reef has continued to gain momentum—restoring more reef habitat and building local capacity to care for it into the future.

Building Local Capacity in Bocachica

As part of the Costas Resilientes: Caribe project, led by the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) and funded by the Swedish Postcode Foundation, three Bocachica community members were trained by our allied dive centers as Open Water Divers with a buoyancy specialty. Together with two other certified divers from the community, they were then trained and certified by Corales de Paz as Reef Check EcoDivers.
This milestone leaves Varadero with a locally trained team capable of monitoring coral reefs and restoration sites—including our MARRS (Mars Assisted Reef Restoration System) installations—ensuring that long-term stewardship remains in community hands.

300 New Reef Stars Installed

Our second large-scale deployment in Varadero was a success. With the energy of more than 40 volunteers on land, freedivers, scuba divers, and the Corales de Paz team, we installed 300 Reef Stars in a new section of the reef.
This was the first installation led fully by Corales de Paz after completing training with Mars Sustainable Solutions earlier this year, and it proudly included the newly trained Bocachica divers. Together, we attached hundreds of coral fragments, carefully deployed the stars, and expanded the restored area significantly.

New results up to July 2025:

The MARRS restoration site shows positive early trends:

• Coral cover increased from 4.4% to 17.3%, with an additional 2.7% gain after two months.
• Fish richness and abundance improved significantly, with abundance nearly tripling and reaching levels comparable to the positive control site.
• Invertebrate richness increased, though abundance remains lower than in the positive control.
• Coral bleaching was detected (35.4% at restoration site vs. 57.2% at positive control), suggesting similar stress levels but with expected transplant-related mortality.

Overall, the site is showing encouraging ecological recovery with improved fish communities and coral cover, while coral stress and substrate changes will continue to be monitored to track their dynamics.

Thank you for helping us bring Varadero Reef back to life!

—
The Corales de Paz Team