Understanding Tourist influence on Akumal Bay
Names: Dieuwertje Roelofsen and Marieke van Liere
Country: Netherlands
Program: Coastal Management Program
Project: Understanding Tourist influence on Akumal Bay
IN THEIR OWN WORDS
We are two girls from HAS University of Applied Science in the Netherlands. As part of our studies, we are required to complete an internship outside of our country, and we chose to do this here in Mexico with CEA.
What we do at CEA
Our internship is for 5 months, in which we have three separate projects that will give us a overall view of the current situation of Akumal Bay. From these three projects we hope to be able to determine the influence of tourism on Akumal Bay. Our projects include:
Creating a bathymetrical map
We kayak in the bay with an echo-sounder to map the depths of the bay. This allows to co-relate other data and help give us a wider picture of things.
Monitoring sediment traps
We set up traps that catch the floating sand in the ocean to determine the amount of sand and sediment that threatens the reef.
Fish Identification
We determine the fish diversity in Akumal Bay.
We snorkel almost every day to monitor the sediment traps and to take pictures of fish. One of the ways to see the more shy fish in the bay is setting up Go-Pro cameras underwater nearby the corals. We have been surprised to see a lot of moray eels, graysby fish and squirrelfish.
Aside from our main projects, we also want to focus on the marine trash that is washed
ashore in Akumal Bay. We are in the midst of creating a monthly Beach Cleanup with CEA,
volunteers and Akumal guests to collect the trash, especially the plastic trash, that washes up on the rocky shores of Akumal.
What do we do besides our internship?
We live in Tulum, a very nice town just 20 minutes away from Akumal. We take Spanish classes two times a week after our “working” days. On the weekends we do a lot of sightseeing and we try to visit as many beautiful places in Quintana Roo as we can! We also meet a lot of new people and are enjoying ourselves here in Mexico.
What's next?
Just a few more weeks and our internship is over. We hope to produce a good report
about our study here with which CEA can take further steps to protect the bay from its
threats. After the end of our internship we will travel around the Yucatan for a month before
we have to go back to the cold Netherlands again. We have had a great time so far and we
have learned so much about Akumal, its ecosystem and of course Mexican life!
