It all began in 1994 when Lisa Carne, a recent Bachelor’s Degree graduate in biology from the University of California made her first trip to southern Belize. Experiencing the change in culture and environment, Lisa knew that Placencia would be her forever home.
1995 – MOVING TO BELIZE
Lisa moved to Belize just a year after her first visit, where she worked as a volunteer research assistant at Carrie Bow Caye (the Smithsonian Field Station). That’s where she learned of the detriment on coral reef ecosystems and the importance of safeguarding them. It was also that very year when Belize experienced its first coral bleaching event. Throughout this year, she ventured into new employment working as a PADI Open Water Instructor and later managing Glover’s Reef Marine Reserve for the Belize Fisheries Department and a biologist for Friends of Nature, now known as Southern Environmental Association.
2001 – PLACENCIA FACE HURRICANE IRIS: THE BEGINNING OF SOMETHING BIG
After experiencing the impacts of Hurricane Iris that came this year to southern Belize, the vulnerability of Belize’s marine environment became worrisome for Lisa. She later visited San Pedro in northern Belize where she found large stands of Elkhorn coral fragments scattered among the seagrass beds. And this was the birth of a genius idea: replenishing the reefs by planting corals!
2002 – REEF RESEARCHING
After conducting reef research on Ambergris Caye in 2002, Lisa started focusing her work on the Acroporid species (A. cervicornis, A. palmata, A. prolifera) in Belize.
2006 – PACT RESEARCH GRANT
In 2006, Lisa received a research grant from PACT allowing her to use Laughing Bird Caye National Park as a natural laboratory and a coral nursery in an attempt to restore the critically endangered Acropora corals which were once in abundance along Belize’s Barrier Reef. After consulting with Dr. Austin Bowden-Kerby who had pioneered and published on coral nursery methods, Lisa’s transplanting experiment began to take great lengths.
2009 – LAUNCH OF CORAL NURSERY PROJECT
Thanks to funding from the World Wildlife Fund, the Caribbean Community Climate Change Center and the World Bank, Lisa launched her bold new coral nursery project in Southern Belize at Laughing Bird Caye National Park. Just the year before, the Caribbean Acroporids (Elkhorn and Staghorn coral) were the first corals to be Red listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN); their status considered Critically Endangered, one step away from extinct in the wild. These corals were once the most common in the Caribbean but have been reduced by over 98% within the past decades.
2013 – FRAGMENTS OF HOPE LTD REGISTERED
In 2013, Fragments of Hope, Ltd. was registered in Belize as a not-for-profit organization, with Lisa as the Executive Director alongside her Community Board members.
2014 – OCEAN HERO
2014 marks the year Lisa completed the University of Belize’s first MSc program in Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainable Development, in collaboration with the University of the West Indies, graduating with ‘distinction’ for her research paper on the Acroporid family of coral. This same year, she was awarded “Ocean Hero” by Oceana Belize for the efforts towards coral reforestation.
2015 – US COUNTERPART REGISTERED
In 2015, Fragments of Hope added a US counterpart (501c3) with a different Board of Directors that includes women scientists. They are funded by several small and medium grants and contracts, with one private investor. Partnering with other conservation organizations such as SEA, Healthy Reefs Initiative, Oceana and World Wildlife Fund, they also foster a relationship with the Belize Fisheries Department and international researchers.
2016 – INTERNATIONAL CORAL REEF SYMPOSIUM (ICRS)
Fragments of Hope received international recognitionfor demonstrating effective Caribbean acroporid population enhancement in Belize.
2017 – MOMENTUM FOR CHANGE AWARD
A year later, Fragments of Hope attended the 23rd Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to receive their Lighthouse Activity award from the UN Secretariat for Climate Change under their Momentum for Change Program.
2018 – FOH FUTURE
The future looks bright for Fragments of Hope, with a grant from GEF Small Grants Programme for educational tools such as coloring books, puzzles, and posters using local artist Anton Leslie. The first coloring book Anton Leslie created, “More corals=more fish” can be downloaded for free from our teacher’s corner page. They were also awarded two grants from MAR Fund for more exchange trips and have ongoing work in South Water Caye Marine Reserve and Turneffe through MCCAP (World Bank) until 2020.
