The last pristine and healthy Caribbean coral reefs?

The deadly heat waves of 2023 and 2024 killed almost all Caribbean Acropora corals (elkhorn and staghorn), wiping out years of coral “restoration” projects, and making Florida reefs “functionally extinct”.

The same happened at all other known remaining Acropora populations around the Caribbean, leaving behind only very few, small, isolated, non-reproductive, surviving fragments.

Only one site in the Caribbean is confirmed to have escaped the deadly high temperatures, and still has healthy reproducing populations of all Acropora species, a short stretch of the Cuban north coast near Matanzas at the Playa Coral & Laguna de Maya Marine Protected Area.   

Dr. Patricia Gonzalez-Diaz, President of Scientific Council of  the Centro de Investigaciones Marinas, Universidad de La Habana, & Head of the Laguna de Maya Project, asked GCRA’s Tom Goreau to confirm this site’s ecological suitability for coral nurseries. 

This uncut 2 minute video taken on August 7 2026 at Punta Maya shows only a very small part of the site, dominated by vast fields of staghorn. Other sites nearby have healthy spreading elkhorn recovering from severe storm damage. 

Thomas J. F. Goreau says “These incredible coral reefs are just like those first described by Thomas F. Goreau (1956). I never thought I would ever again see coral reefs like those I learned to dive in 75 years ago!”

These corals are the last known chance to save healthy Caribbean Acropora in pristine condition, Playa Coral & Laguna de Maya is the most important reef conservation priority in the Caribbean, and international support is urgently needed to protect and propagate the last healthy corals there!

A detailed report explaining the site’s uniqueness will soon be posted here.