Our marine conservation organization

Coral Guardian has been restoring colors to oceans since 2012.

Our story

Coral Guardian is a non-governmental organization. Since 2012, we have been working internationally and with local communities to protect coral ecosystems.

2012 Creation of Coral Guardian

After a year in Indonesia, where Martin Colognoli, a marine biologist and co-founder of the organization, was working in a business exporting corals and other marine wildlife. There, he discovers practices that are harmful to the natural environment, to animals and also to humans. Based on this first experience, we launch the first coral reef conservation project thanks to the participative program “Adopt a Coral” allowing anyone to contribute to the protection of our ocean. Coral Guardian was born.

2013 Research and Development

Based in Indonesia, during those first few years we continuously worked on improving our techniques on projects around Bali with various methods such as rope, concrete and ceramics. The use of rope, as an example, proved very complicated because of the strong ocean currents in that area. We found that the technique that proved to be the most efficient was fixing corals with stainless steel wire onto metallic frames which were easy to make.

2015 Launch of the pilot project in Indonesia, on Hatamin island

Having gained extensive experience with the implementation of several test programs on the islands of Bali, Gili Trawangan and Nusa Penida, we then launched our first participatory marine conservation pilot project on the Hatamin archipelago in Indonesia, by directly implicating locals on the ground.

2019 Spreading our participatory model with the Blue Center

After 7 years of operation, we launched our own training program, the Blue Center, to enable smaller structures around the world to grow by benefiting from Coral Guardian’s expertise. The aim is to spread our model of participative marine conservation around the world following the great success of our conservation program developed on Hatamin island.

2020 Launch of our Mediterranean Sea project in Spain

We launched our first key Blue Center project, in collaboration with the local organization Coral Soul. This project, Deep CORE, is located in Punta de la Mona, in Spain, and one of the first participatory marine conservation programs in the Mediterranean Sea.

Our activity reports

2021 impact report

2020 impact report

2019 impact report

2018 activity report

2017 activity report Available in French only.

2016 activity report Available in French only.

2015 activity report Available in French only.

2014 activity report Available in French only.

2013 activity report Available in French only.

“My professional career began in Indonesia as a manager in an export company dealing with corals and other marine animals for the aquarium trade. I was quickly disillusioned when I realised that I was taking part in a legal plundering and poaching of marine life that I cherished so much. This experience made me realise that humans are drawing on natural resources without giving anything back. So I co-founded the nonprofit Coral Guardian at that time. The main idea was to protect coral ecosystems through working with the people who depend on them, in this case traditional fishermen fighting for their food sovereignty.”

Martin Colognoli, co-founder and director of Coral Guardian

Our team

France

Martin Colognoli Co-founder and director

Florina Jacob Field and scientific project manager

Coco Tamlyn Communications Manager

Neyda Radouane Partnerships manager

Dr. Olivier Detournay President

Caroline Bourgeois General Secretary

Julien Holleville Treasurer

Bruno Breton Member of the executive board

Romain Bernard Projet Management Office

Carole Petetin Graphic Designer

Ruxandra Toderasc Science and project management advice

Coralie Barrier Writer of scientific articles

Dr. Leïla Ezzat Aquatic Ecologist, EPFL

Lomano Takasi Ambassador

Vladimir Ospina Architect and illustrator

Solène Ollivier Coral Reef Ecologist

Anne-Sophie Mouraud Consultant in Marketing & Strategy

Laurie-Anne Delannoy Translator

Yann Farines IT Expert

Julien Brochard Developer

Indonesia

Jonash Castilo Murdini Local director

Abdullah Weo Responsible for mediation with fishermen

Valentina Limek Tukan Tourism manager

Suhardin Roni Boat captain

Murdianto Coral transplantor

Muslimin Coral transplantor

Sahril Coral transplantor

Immaculada Hane Hane English teacher

* some of our team members in Indonesia do not have surnames, hence the mention of first names only 🙂

Spain

Marina Palacios Miñambres Project Director

Zaida Parra President

Rafa Camacho Secretary

Salva Blanco Team member, CEO Buceonatura

Nacho Martín Team member, Airplane pilot

Javi Sánchez Professional hotographer, CEO Different Scuba School