La Directora General de la Corporación para el Desarrollo Sostenible de San Andrés, Providencia y Santa Catalina (Coralina), Elizabeth Taylor Jay, en su calidad de fundadora del Grupo de Facebook ‘Amigos de Seaflower’, se dirigió también a las personas de habla inglesa con el mensaje que solicita el apoyo a la comunidad residente y amiga de nuestra reserva de biosfera.
Dear Friend and Supporter of Ocean Conservation,
I'm writing to you because I know that you care about the San Andres Archipelago – its exquisite marine environment and its special people. The Seaflower Biosphere Reserve and Marine Protected Area (MPA) were created by CORALINA and the people of the archipelago to protect the natural environment and special culture of the native people, ensuring seeking a sustainable development for all islanders.
Seaflower has been a member of the UNESCO World Network of Biosphere Reserves since 2000 and is now proposed to become a marine natural World Heritage Sites. The first multiple-use MPA in Colombia and the largest MPA in the Caribbean, the Seaflower spreads over 65,000 square kilometers and encompasses 76 percent of Colombia’s coral reefs and the most extensive open ocean reef systems in the entire Caribbean; more than 2,000 km2 of productive coral reef ecosystems with atolls, barrier reefs, fringing reefs, mangroves, seagrass beds, and lagoons.
The MPA is known to be exceptionally rich in marine biodiversity for the region -- to date more than 407 species of fish, 48 hard corals, 54 soft corals, 130 sponges, 157 birds, and many other significant species have been identified, along with 192 IUCN red-listed species including sea turtles, marine mammals, hydrocorals, and others.
The archipelago was declared a Significant Bird Area by Bird Life International in 2004 and is part of the western Caribbean biodiversity “hotspot” Besides its unique environment, San Andres also has a special social history.
The descendants of the original inhabitants are protected as a national ethnic minority. The Seaflower MPA was established in 2005, with support from the Global Environment Facility (GEF), and resulted from a uniquely participatory process between CORALINA and the local community. This innovative MPA protects the livelihoods and tenure of the indigenous people, integrating conservation with sustainable fishing, harvesting, and locally run tourism.
CORALINA’s work in establishing Seaflower was recognized in 2008 by IUCN as one of the 60 most significant approaches to conservation that will influence the environment in the coming century. For its ground-breaking efforts in sustainability, last October the Seaflower MPA took top honors as the initiative that best realized the goals of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) at the Conferenceof the Parties (COP 10) in Nagoya, Japan.
To help people from around the World protect this very special place, we have established the Friends of Seaflower in collaboration with The Ocean Foundation (TOF). TOF is a unique community foundation with a mission to support, strengthen, and promote organizations dedicated to reversing the trend of destruction of ocean environments around the world and to growing the financial resources available to support marine conservation in order to promote healthy ocean ecosystems and benefit the human communities that depend on them.
Please contribute $500, $100, $50 or whatever you can to the Friends of Seaflower. It’s so easy to give to the Seaflower MPA nowadays; simply go to the Friends of Seaflower and send your tax-deductible contribution for us to The Ocean Foundation https://www.oceanfdn.org/donate?friend=the-seaflower
Your gift will not only be an investment in ocean conservation in the Southwestern Caribbean but also in the future of the San Andres people. I hope you will take this opportunity to encourage and support our efforts in the Seaflower MPA by making a donation. We can accomplish great things when we believe in and support each other.
Thank you for your generous support.
Sustainably yours,
Elizabeth Taylor
Executive Director
CORALINA
