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Reef Renewal Bonaire

RRFB Welcomes Back Francesca Virdis as Executive Director

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Reef Renewal Foundation Bonaire has appointed Francesca Virdis, one of the organization’s founders and former Managing Director, as Executive Director. Virdis returns after serving as Restoration Strategy & Planning Lead at KAUST’s Coral Restoration Initiative in Saudi Arabia, one of the world’s largest coral restoration operations. This marks a new phase of strategic development for ...

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Finding Resilience: Expanding Our Lac Bay Nursery

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By RRFB Intern Jette Damminger Lac Bay is a shallow and dynamic ecosystem on Bonaire’s southeast coast where coral reefs, seagrass beds, and mangroves meet – making it both ecologically rich and highly sensitive to change. This year, Reef Renewal Foundation Bonaire (RRFB) has expanded its nursery here to include a wider range of stony ...

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RRFB Breeds Rare Pillar Coral for the First Time on Bonaire

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RRFB divers search the reef for signs of pillar coral spawning on Tuesday night. Photo credit: Julian Beccari
For the first time, Reef Renewal Foundation Bonaire (RRFB) has successfully collected spawn from pillar coral (Dendrogyra cylindrus) and raised young corals through its breeding program. Pillar coral is critically endangered and has been devastated by diseases and bleaching, with only a handful of colonies remaining on Bonaire. For species like pillar coral, now too ...

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RRFB Produces 236,000+ Brain Coral Larvae During Spawning

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Reef Renewal Foundation Bonaire successfully produced over 236,000 larvae after observing a grooved brain coral spawning event across four monitoring sites in Bonaire. As coral populations continue to decline across the Caribbean, facilitating sexual reproduction is a vital tool to boost resilience and preserve genetic diversity. This work is made possible through the support of ...

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Get to Know Our Team: Ibrahim Valentijn

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  Ibrahim Valentijn Reef Renewal Trainee Ibrahim Valentijn is one of the newest members of the RRFB team, but his journey with us started well before he officially joined. Born and raised on Bonaire, Ibrahim first connected with Reef Renewal during a short internship in early 2025—and quickly made a lasting impression. Now working as ...

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RRFB Brings Together Caribbean Partners for Coral Restoration Workshop

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reef renewal bonaire coral workshop group photo 2
RRFB hosted a week-long coral restoration workshop in Bonaire, bringing together teams from Curaçao, Aruba, and Saba. The workshop focused on sharing techniques, aligning priorities, and building regional capacity for restoration. The teams led presentations and field sessions, working together to improve techniques like micro-fragmentation, fire coral propagation, and photogrammetry analysis. Download PDF Press Release ...

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Strengthening Bonaire’s Coral Reefs Amidst Unprecedented Bleaching

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Caribbean coral reefs, including Bonaire’s, have experienced unprecedented bleaching in the past two years, driven by record-high ocean temperatures that threaten the survival of nearly all species in the region. Reef Renewal Foundation Bonaire (RRFB) is growing heat-resilient corals to strengthen vulnerable populations and help them survive mounting challenges. To scale up its response to bleaching, ...

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Shading Bonaire’s Corals: An Innovative Approach to Bleaching Mitigation

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horizontal rope nursery in lac bay
By RRFB Intern Nicolas Franchini This past April, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released a statement confirming the occurrence of the fourth global coral bleaching event, which persisted from May 2023 through March 2024. At Reef Renewal Foundation Bonaire (RRFB), we witnessed firsthand the devastating impacts of rising ocean temperatures on our coral ...

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RRFB’s New Leadership and Team Expansion

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RRFB Announces New Leadership and Team Expansion The Board of Directors of Reef Renewal Foundation Bonaire (RRFB) has appointed Ernst Noyons as Chief Operating Officer (COO), who has over 3 years of experience at the organization and previous roles in marine conservation. Our team continues to expand and scale their restoration activities to enhance the ...

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