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How healthy is Roatan's reef? What the monitoring shows

Record heat bleached Roatan's corals between 2023 and 2025, and a coral disease arrived in 2020. Fish numbers are rising and restoration is under way. What the reef report cards and recent studies actually show.

Coral and sea fans on the reef off Roatan

By Roatan Lifestyle

Published October 17, 2026 · 12 min read

Last checked 18 October 2026.

Is the reef in Roatan healthy?

It has had a hard few years, and in our experience it is still a very good reef to snorkel and dive. Between 2023 and 2025 record ocean heat bleached corals across the Bay Islands, and a coral disease has been on the island since 2020. On the other side, the latest regional survey found fish stocks recovering, and the island has active coral nurseries and Honduras's first coral-rearing lab. This page sets out what the monitoring actually shows, so you can judge for yourself.

Lettuce coral growing on the reef off Roatan
Lettuce coral on the reef off Roatan. Photo: Daniel Gillaspia, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Who measures reef health, and how?

The main scorekeeper is the Healthy Reefs Initiative, which publishes a report card for the whole Mesoamerican Reef, from Mexico down to Honduras, every two years or so. Its Reef Health Index combines four measures: how much of the seabed is live coral, how much is covered in fleshy seaweed, and how many commercial and plant-eating fish there are. Each is scored from one, critical, to five, very good.

Plant-eating fish matter more than they sound. Parrotfish and surgeonfish graze the seaweed that would otherwise smother young coral, which is why protecting them is one of the main tools reef managers have.

What do the report cards say?

The most recent card, published in late 2024, mostly uses surveys from 2023. Across 286 sites in four countries it found the first improvement in five years.

Report card Whole reef score (out of 5) What changed
2020 (data to 2018) 2.8 in 2016 fell to 2.5 Large falls in fish, particularly in Honduras; Honduras's own score fell from 3.0 to 2.5
2022 2.3, poor Of 234 sites, 44 percent rated poor and 31 percent critical
2024 (data mostly 2023) 2.3 rose to 2.5, still poor Weight of commercial fish per area up 40 percent, plant-eating fish up 30 percent, coral cover down from 19 to 17 percent

A 17 percent coral cover sounds low, but it has to be read against the whole Caribbean: a 2003 study in Science found that living coral cover on Caribbean reefs fell by about 80 percent between 1977 and 2001.

Because those surveys came before the worst of the heat, the 2024 improvement tells you the reef was recovering going into the heatwaves, not how it looks today. For the Bay Islands specifically, the 2024 card found plant-eating fish improving on every island except Guanaja, while across Honduras as a whole coral cover slipped slightly. Detailed scores for Roatan alone sit in the report card's maps, and we have not reproduced them here because we could not check them against a text source.

There is good history to measure against. In 2018 the Coral Reef Alliance, citing that year's report card, described the reefs at West End as among the healthiest in the entire Mesoamerican Reef. Much of that stretch sits inside the Sandy Bay to West End marine reserve. That was before the disease and the heatwaves, so treat it as history rather than a current ranking.

The report cards also point to pressures beyond heat, including wastewater reaching the sea, coastal development and fishing, and the 2024 card noted that most parrotfish and groupers surveyed were still small.

What did the 2023 to 2025 heatwaves do?

NOAA, the US ocean agency, confirmed a fourth global coral bleaching event in April 2024 and said in 2026 that it exposed 84 percent of the world's reef area to bleaching-level heat before ending in mid-2025. Bleaching happens when overheated corals expel the algae that feed them. Corals can recover if the water cools in time; if it does not, they starve.

Roatan felt it three years running. A study published in Frontiers in Marine Science in October 2026 measured heat stress off the island at about 12 degree heating weeks in 2023, 14 in 2024 and 8 in 2025, and called the three years together the most significant on record. Scientists usually expect severe bleaching from about 8. A 2026 assessment of the Bay Islands in the journal Coral Reefs found the 2023 heat began building unusually early, in June, peaked in October at a record level, and by late that year had bleached every main group of reef-building coral, with lettuce corals hit hardest. In an Instagram post in late October 2023, later quoted by the Honduran outlet Contra Corriente, the Roatan Marine Park's research programs manager wrote that her team did not even need to get in the water, because white spots could be seen all over the reef from the boat.

The Frontiers study also followed three monitored sites at Cordelia Banks, just off Roatan's southwest coast, which had held 46 to 73 percent live coral for most of the previous two decades, unusually high for the Caribbean. Across the bleaching years it reported a 44 percent fall in live coral cover there and a 38 percent rise in fleshy seaweed, and regional monitors reported Cordelia's cover falling to around 5 percent by early 2024. These are three sites on one unusually coral-rich bank, not an island-wide average, and no island-wide coral figure has been published since. A second 2026 study, covering Utila and Tela Bay on the mainland, recorded Utila's coral cover falling from about 13 to 7 percent.

What is stony coral tissue loss disease?

A fast-spreading coral disease first seen in Florida in 2014 that strips living tissue from more than 20 species of hard coral, including the big brain and star corals that build reefs. On Roatan it was first confirmed at Flowers Bay in September 2020, after a report from a diver. Local partners, including the Roatan Marine Park, mobilized a response straight away. A 2023 study counted at least 28 species affected in the Bay Islands and found it moved faster along Roatan's windward side.

There is a treatment. Divers from the Roatan Marine Park and the Bay Islands Conservation Association apply an antibiotic paste to the edge of each lesion, for which the marine park reports 50 to 65 percent efficacy. By its own count the park has tagged and treated 1,373 corals at 48 dive sites.

What is being done to help the reef?

In short: corals are being treated for disease, grown in nurseries and in a lab, and replanted, while rangers protect the plant-eating fish that keep seaweed down. Most of this is run on the island by the Roatan Marine Park and the Bay Islands Conservation Association. Survival of replanted corals is still being monitored, so the results are not yet known.

  • The Coral Restoration Center Roatan. Opened in June 2025 by the Roatan Marine Park and the California Academy of Sciences with a $1.5 million grant, it is the first land-based coral-rearing lab in Honduras, according to the California Academy of Sciences. From its first spawning, with eggs and sperm collected on the reef and fertilized in the lab, it raised about 3,000 young grooved brain corals. Half went into protected tents on the reef, and the rest, raised in the lab, have since been moved onto the reef too.
  • Coral nurseries. The Roatan Marine Park grows fast-growing elkhorn and staghorn corals on underwater frames and replants them; its program page reported 45 nursery trees and 310 fragments outplanted in 2024. The Bay Islands Conservation Association runs its own nurseries and reported 124 staghorn and 81 elkhorn fragments planted on Roatan by early 2026.
  • Protecting the grazers. Fishing parrotfish and other plant-eating fish is restricted under Honduran law, and marine park rangers patrol the reef with the Honduran Navy. In 2024 the park reported covering about 51,000 kilometers on patrol and seizing 490 lobster, conch and parrotfish.
  • Mooring buoys at dive sites, so boats do not drop anchor on coral, maintained by the Roatan Marine Park, which has worked with the Coral Reef Alliance since 2005.
  • Culling lionfish, an invasive predator, through a licensed spearfishing program.
  • A sunscreen campaign. The marine park, with local partners, has petitioned the municipality to ban sunscreens containing six chemicals, including oxybenzone and octinoxate. We found no ban in force when we checked.
Sea rods and soft corals on a Roatan reef wall
Soft corals and sea rods on a reef wall. Photo: Daniel Gillaspia, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Is it still worth snorkeling and diving here?

Yes, and we say that as people who get in the water here. The reef is changed rather than gone. Fish stocks were recovering on the latest regional data, turtles and eagle rays are frequent sights, and the north side walls dropping into deep water are as dramatic as ever. Sites with heavy coral loss tend to be patchy rather than uniform, so a good dive guide will know where the reef is looking best that month.

What has changed is the odds of seeing big, old coral heads in perfect condition everywhere you go. If you dived Roatan fifteen years ago you may notice that. If it is your first time, you are likely to come up delighted.

A colorful reef fish sheltering among corals off Roatan
Reef life off Roatan, still well worth the trip below the surface. Photo: Daniel Gillaspia, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How can visitors help?

The biggest thing is not damaging coral yourself: no touching, standing or fin kicks, which break and stress living tissue. After that, cut the chemicals you bring into the water with a mineral sunscreen or a rash vest, report anything that looks like disease, and, if you want to give something back, support one of the island's reef groups, such as the Roatan Marine Park or the Bay Islands Conservation Association.

  • Do not touch, stand on or kick the reef. Check your fins and buoyancy before you reach it.
  • Use a mineral sunscreen or a rash vest.
  • Do not buy coral, shells or turtle-shell souvenirs.
  • Order lionfish when you see it on a menu.
  • If you see coral that is white and patchy or peeling, tell your dive shop. The disease was first spotted on Roatan by a diver.
  • If you want to contribute, the Roatan Marine Park is funded partly by a voluntary contribution, sold as a reef bracelet, which some dive shops may mention when you book.

Common questions about Roatan's reef health

Is the reef in Roatan healthy?

Mixed, but still very much worth visiting. Record heat between 2023 and 2025 bleached corals across the Bay Islands, and one study recorded a 44 percent fall in live coral cover at three sites on Cordelia Banks. But the latest Healthy Reefs report card found fish stocks improving across the region, and Roatan has active coral nurseries and a coral-rearing lab. And because the reef starts a short swim from shore, you can be among turtles, rays and schools of reef fish any day you like, with no long boat ride.

Is there coral bleaching in Roatan?

There was severe bleaching during the 2023 to 2025 global bleaching event, which NOAA says ended in mid-2025. Heat stress off Roatan reached about 14 degree heating weeks in 2024, part of three years of heat stress that researchers called the most significant on record. How much coral recovered varies a lot from site to site, and no island-wide figure has been published. Your dive shop will know current conditions at the sites it visits, and the fish life is still a highlight on most dives.

What is stony coral tissue loss disease in Roatan?

A coral disease that strips living tissue from more than 20 species of hard coral. It was first confirmed on Roatan at Flowers Bay in September 2020 and has since spread around the Bay Islands. The Roatan Marine Park and the Bay Islands Conservation Association treat infected corals with an antibiotic paste, for which the marine park reports 50 to 65 percent efficacy.

Is snorkeling in Roatan still good?

Yes. The reef starts a short swim from the beach at West Bay and West End, and snorkelers often see turtles, rays and large schools of reef fish. Fish stocks across the wider Mesoamerican Reef improved in the latest report card. Coral condition varies by site after the 2023 to 2025 heatwaves, so ask locally which spots are looking best.

What is the Coral Restoration Center Roatan?

A land-based coral-rearing lab opened in June 2025 by the Roatan Marine Park and the California Academy of Sciences, the first of its kind in Honduras. It raises baby corals from spawning in controlled tanks before returning them to the reef. Its first run raised about 3,000 young grooved brain corals, and that first generation has since been returned to the reef, where it is being monitored for survival.

Do you need reef-safe sunscreen in Roatan?

It is not required by law. We found no sunscreen ban in force on Roatan when this page was checked, although the Roatan Marine Park and local partners have petitioned the municipality to ban six sunscreen chemicals, including oxybenzone and octinoxate. A mineral sunscreen based on zinc oxide, or simply a rash vest and hat, is the considerate choice and what most dive shops will suggest.

Checked 18 October 2026. Written by Roatan Lifestyle, an independent guide to Roatan, written by people who live here. If something here is out of date, tell us.

Sources

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