PROJECT TITLE: Curacao Coral Team Training Project

LOCATION: Curacao, Dutch Caribbean

PROPOSAL DATE: As soon as funding is available

TIMELINE: 10 day project

PROJECT AIMS: The Reef Ball Coral Team is a rapidly growing group of trained coral restoration experts from all over the world that are willing to volunteer their time to come together for specific projects to rescue, propagate, and plant corals and red mangroves. One of the teams first project with Porta Mari, Curacao. Because this is one of our oldest installations, and it has been professionally monitored since it was installed, it is the perfect location to train new team members and re-train existing members on our latest findings. This project aims to bring together the most accomplished members of the Coral Team (known with the team simply as A-Team members) to travel to Curacao and spend a week doing workshop style, hands on training of the latest techniques for coral restoration. In addition to the selected group, new or existing volunteers would be able to join in this open workshop but they would have to pay their own way. In this way, this project would become a training opportunity for the worldwide coral restoration community.

BUDGET: $25,000 for airfares, hotel and food for invited team members.

PROJECT CONTACTS: Todd Barber, Chairman, Reef Ball Foundation reefball@reefball.com

Left: 3 years growth of a propagated and planted coral in Curacao, half meter square.