The Ropes of Hope

Welcome

The Ropes of Hope NGO was born from the dreams of a few ocean lovers on a coral restoration course, held recently in Tanzania, East Africa. The goal of The Ropes of Hope is to halt the decline of the coral reefs of the Mafia Island Marine Park and surrounds, damaged by multiple bleaching events and an increase in unsustainable fishing practices, as a direct result of the economic impact of COVID19 on jobs and livelihoods among the people of the Mafia archipelago. We are approaching the coral reef ecosystem of the park holistically, by including the local communities that live in the park who now depend on the natural resources of the park for their survival. You are invited to join us in this amazing adventure! You can help us by liking and sharing our social media posts, by supporting us financially with a donation or by sponsoring a coral, a rope of corals or a even a whole nursery or by joining us to get hands-on and become a coral gardening practitioner. Asante sana. Thank you so much. Tulinde Matumbawe yetu. Let’s save our corals!

What we do

Our work will be based on three core pillars:

Create a gene bank

To collect and propagate as many different species, and genotypes within species, as possible from “corals of opportunity” . Corals of opportunity are fragments of

Research

To conduct well controlled and monitored research on methods for cost-effective reef regeneration and how to stimulate natural coral recruitment. Growing corals is a rapidly

Community involvement

To involve the fishers of the islands within the park in coral propagation and regeneration to raise awareness of the economic importance of the reefs

Follow our story!

Nursery building time! A learning curve

Posted in Blogs by Kitukiblu on March 21, 2023

We have built two new rope nurseries to up our coral growing game! The first step of building a nursery is site selection. Selecting a

Nursery stocking and ex-planting missions!

Posted in Blogs by Kitukiblu on March 21, 2023

We have had a busy few days over at Thanda Island looking after our coral nurseries together with resident marine biologist Rianne and coral

New nurseries!

Posted in Blogs by Marretje Adriaanse on November 22, 2021

We had a busy week last week. We built two new nurseries in an action-packed three day trip to Thanda Island Private Marine Reserve. We

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OUR TEAM

Jean de Villiers, PhD

Project Leader

Founder member and Chief Scientific Officer Jean trained in coral propagation and restoration with the NatureSeychelles project on Cousin Island. He and his young family

Jean de Villiers, PhD

Anne de Villiers, MSc

Founder member and Chief Community Liaison Officer

Anne de Villiers is development professional with an expertise in developing strategies for sustaining meaningful positive outcomes in communities.

Anne de Villiers, MSc

Marretje Adriaanse, MSc

Founder Member & Project Coordinator

Marretje is born and raised in the Netherlands. Passionate about nature, she decided to study Biology and obtained her bachelor’s degree at the University

Marretje Adriaanse, MSc

Rianne Laan, MSc

Founder Member & Scientific Advisor

My name is Rianne and I’m a marine biologist working for Thanda Island since 2017. I’m originally from the Netherlands and did my masters in

Rianne Laan, MSc

Núria Camps Suárez

Founding Member & Research Associate

Being able to help building and growing the first nursery of Ropes of Hopes is the best way to describe the words “conservation” and “future” at the same time!

Núria Camps Suárez

Masanja Charles Joram

Community Outreach Associate

Masanja has a diploma in Fisheries Science and studied Aquaculture at the Sokoine University of Agriculture. Furthermore, Masanja has 15 years of experience in the

Masanja Charles Joram

Past contributors & interns

Marretje Adriaanse, MSc Marretje is born and raised in the Netherlands. Passionate about nature, she decided to study Biology and obtained her bachelor’s degree at

Past contributors & interns

Our partners

The ‘Ropes” in The Ropes of Hope symbolize many things but most important of these is the idea of many strands woven together to create strength. We know we can only be successful with partnerships and by building on the hard work of other organizations, businesses, government agencies and passionate individuals. Therefore we are very grateful for the support and collaboration of our partners so far:

Our corporate Sponsors