Santo Domingo

Dominican Republic

La Caleta MPA is a small protected area created in 1986, to protect once-healthy coral reefs and preserve archeological remnants of a Taino population that once lived there. To current times, this MPA has worked as a paper-park, mostly due to lack of capacity of the authorities and awareness by the local community and visitors. RCDR started collecting baseline data on reef health since 3 years ago, to allow future comparison and to determine the effectiveness of any management actions, we have a legal agreement with the Ministry of Environment to conduct management activities involving the local community. RCDR plans to restore the Park's infrastructure, while increasing awareness and capacity of local stakeholders by implementing better management practices. These management actions has already started to increase the health of local reefs that would in turn create better conditions for a sustainable fishing industry, which will eventually be displaced by ecotourism and diving industry, making La Caleta MPA a model for sustainable use and management.

For more information contact: Reef Check Dominican Republic at info@reefcheckdr.org

La Calenta Marine Protected Area is conveniently located just 20 minutes to the East of Santo Domingo city, and just 3 minutes from the las americas internacional airport.

There is a parking lot, and as small beach where several local fishermen use their wooden boats to take divers our to sites, all sites have mooring buoys, and the dive area is protected from fishing by self regulation by local fishermen, although, recreational divers still spearfish here, bad divers!

Parque Nacional Submarino La Caleta is also known as La Caleta.