🌊 We’re breaking new ground... literally and figuratively! 🌊

Construction has officially begun on our new virtual reality (VR) center at Tela Marine (@tela_marine)!! This project, powered by a foundational grant from the Stanley Creators Fund (@stanley_brand), will help us bring the magic of Tela’s reefs far beyond the Bay.

Why VR? Because we believe that to protect the reef, people must first have the chance to fall in love with it. For a child, an elder, or anyone for whom the ocean is out of reach, this center will be their submarine, their dive gear, and their window to an ecosystem they might otherwise never see.

This project started with our winning Pathfinder Prize from Hidden Compass (@hiddencompassmedia), which allowed Dr. Joseph Henry (@josephaureliohenry) of Triton Society (@triton_society) to capture the first stunning, 360-degree footage of #TheRebelReef. Now, through the Stanley Creators Fund, we’re building a permanent home for these immersive stories.

We are immensely grateful to the Stanley Creators Fund, Stanley 1913 and Hidden Compass for their belief and support. Together, we’re using technology not just as a tool, but as a catalyst for connection and conservation.

Stay tuned for more updates as we bring this vision to life. The waters of Tela are waiting to be explored, and soon, everyone will have a front-row seat! ...

Tela: Making Waves from Honduras to Abu Dhabi! ✈️

With support from @familiesinnature some of our incredible youth ocean ambassadors (Liam, Harper, Aubrey, Sawyer and Senyacen) recently had the opportunity to bring the story of
#TheRebelReef to the global stage at the IUCN World Conservation Congress.

Held every four years, this event is the world’s largest and most inclusive environmental decision-making forum which brings together governments, businesses, academia, and more to address urgent environmental challenges. Its goal is to set global priorities for nature conservation, such as addressing climate change and biodiversity loss, by proposing solutions and shaping policies for the next decade.

Our youth ambassadors proudly shared the results of our team’s hands-on, independent research and community science. The groundbreaking work they shared at Congress included:

🔬 Independent Research Projects: Each ambassador designed and conducted their own research which encompassed topics like tracking coral health, analyzing the impact of local conditions, and monitoring new coral recruits on settlement tiles.

💪 Community Science in Action: They presented data showing how local volunteers, from students to tourists, can contribute to a global understanding of reef resilience.

📊 Data with a Purpose: Their work goes beyond observation. The data they’ve gathered is actively being used by Tela Coral and Tela Marine to guide conservation strategies.

Thank you to Families In Nature and to our amazing ambassadors for amplifying Tela’s story of resilience, action, and hope to the world. They are living proof that the next generation of reef guardians isn’t just waiting for the future. they’re building it, one data point at a time. ...

What if corals could talk?

Turns out, they’ve been keeping diaries for centuries — we just are now learning how to read them! Coral cores are a unique map of the history of the minerals and water as seen through the skeletons that certain types of corals build up. Taking a core of a coral can teach us what was going on at specific moments in time of that coral’s life.

During our May 2025 expedition, scientist Jonathan Jung from the Max Planck Institute (@maxplanckinstituteforchemistry) joined us to carefully extract cores from some of Tela’s oldest, wisest corals. Similar to how scientists can read tree rings to understand environmental conditions in the past, these coral cores will allow us to understand the story of the ocean’s past: temperatures, chemicals, big events, rainfall, and many other unknowns ... all recorded in the coral’s skeleton.

So why dig into the past? To understand a present-day mystery: why are Tela’s reefs so resilient when others around them are struggling?

We think these corals might be stronger because they’ve weathered tough conditions for a long, long time. To confirm our hypothesis, these cores are off to Germany for analysis. Using a technique involving stable isotopes (think of them as chemical breadcrumbs), scientists will see if Tela’s corals exhibit unique feeding habits that have helped them survive and also how these habits may have changed over time.

Join us as we work to decode their ancient survival guide to help protect reefs around the world.

To learn more, read our blog about this historic collaboration: https://telacoral.org/study-coral-histories-with-skeleton-cores/ ...