Port Honduras Marine Reserve

Port Honduras Marine Reserve
IUCN category IV (habitat/species management area)
Map showing the location of Port Honduras Marine Reserve
Map showing the location of Port Honduras Marine Reserve
Map of Belize
LocationGulf of Honduras, Belize
Nearest cityPunta Gorda[1]
Coordinates16°12′11″N 88°38′02″W / 16.203°N 88.634°W / 16.203; -88.634[2]
Area40,470 hectares (100,000 acres)
EstablishedJanuary 2000
Governing body
  • Belize Fisheries Department
  • Toledo Institute for Development and Environment

Port Honduras Marine Reserve is a national protected marine reserve in the Toledo district of Belize. It was established in January 2000,[1] and covers 40,470 hectares (100,000 acres) of mangrove and coastal ecosystems. It encompasses over one hundred small, mangrove-fringed cayes, benthic habitats comprising soft-bottom seagrass beds and fringing reefs.[3]

The reserve is co-managemened by the community-based Non Governmental Organization the Toledo Institute for Development and Environment.[3] It is divided into three zones: a general use zone, a preservation zone[4] and a conservation zone.[5]

  1. ^ a b Belize Tourism Board. "Port of Honduras Marine Reserve". Travel Belize. Retrieved 3 September 2011.
  2. ^ "Port Honduras Marine Reserve". protectedplanet.net.
  3. ^ a b Toledo Institute for Development and Environment. "Port Honduras Marine Reserve". Retrieved 3 August 2011.
  4. ^ Belize Tropical Forest Studies (2010). "Port Honduras (General Use)". Biodiversity and Environmental Resource Data System.
  5. ^ Belize Tropical Forest Studies (2010). "Port Honduras (Conservation Zone)". Biodiversity and Environmental Resource Data System.