Hatchery will focus on raising Caribbean species, aiming to spur economic growth in Punta Cana aquarium and tourism trade

Siliezar, Juan

English

HELIN Digital Commons

RWU and Grupo Puntacana to Partner in Building Ornamental Fish Hatchery in Dominican Republic

DOCS@RWU

Roger Williams UniversityDOCS@RWUFeatured News Story The Week at Roger8-29-2017RWU and Grupo Puntacana to Partner in BuildingOrnamental Fish Hatchery in Dominican RepublicJuan SiliezarRoger Williams UniversityFollow this and additional works at: https://docs.rwu.edu/weekatroger_featured_newsPart of the Higher Education CommonsThis News Article is brought to you for free and open access by the The Week at Roger at DOCS@RWU. It has been accepted for inclusion in FeaturedNews Story by an authorized administrator of DOCS@RWU. For more information, please contact mwu@rwu.edu.Recommended CitationSiliezar, Juan, "RWU and Grupo Puntacana to Partner in Building Ornamental Fish Hatchery in Dominican Republic" (2017).Featured News Story. 262.https://docs.rwu.edu/weekatroger_featured_news/26211/1/2018 RWU and Grupo Puntacana to Partner in Building Ornamental Fish Hatchery in Dominican Republic | Roger Williams Universityhttps://www.rwu.edu/news/news-archive/rwu-and-grupo-puntacana-partner-building-ornamental-fish-hatchery-dominican-republic 1/3 News ArchiveRWU and Grupo Puntacana to Partner in BuildingOrnamental Fish Hatchery in Dominican RepublicHatchery will focus on raising Caribbean species, aiming to spur economicgrowth in Punta Cana aquarium and tourism tradeThe Sharknose Goby is one the many species that will be raisedduring the ornamental  sh hatchery pilot project.August 29, 2017 Juan SiliezarBRISTOL, R.I. – Tourism development company Grupo Puntacana, its nonpro t arm GrupoPuntacana Foundation and Roger Williams University have formed a unique partnership to developthe  rst commercial ornamental  sh hatchery in the Dominican Republic.The hatchery, which will be located within the Puntacana Resort and Club, will test the feasibility ofraising cultured Caribbean reef  sh at a commercial scale for export while restoring some depletedornamental  sh populations on the Punta Cana coral reefs.The hope is to increase the availability of aquacultured animals in the aquarium trade – withoutremoving resources from their natural environments – and to draw more tourists to visit the reefs,potentially spurring economic growth in the area.Other goals of the two-year pilot project include integrating local  shermen and their families innew sustainable livelihoods through the hatchery and creating a viable business model that couldbe replicated in other regions of the Dominican Republic and Caribbean.11/1/2018 RWU and Grupo Puntacana to Partner in Building Ornamental Fish Hatchery in Dominican Republic | Roger Williams Universityhttps://www.rwu.edu/news/news-archive/rwu-and-grupo-puntacana-partner-building-ornamental-fish-hatchery-dominican-republic 2/3“We’re very thankful and happy for this partnership with Roger Williams,” said Frank Elias Rainieri’99, a trustee at RWU, a vice president of Grupo Puntacana and son of Frank Rainieri, who foundedthe resort. “As an alumnus, it’s a dream come true.”The initiative complements over three decades of work in coastal management and coral reefrestoration by the Grupo Puntacana Foundation, which has created one of the largest coral reefrestoration projects in the Caribbean.“We are thrilled to expand our reef restoration e orts to include ornamental  sh species incollaboration with Roger Williams University,” said Jake Kheel, vice president of the GrupoPuntacana Foundation. “The health of our coral reef is fundamental to the success of our resort nowand in the future. We think this project is a natural progression in our expanding e orts to provideviable solutions to the challenges facing the marine coastal area of Punta Cana.”For Roger Williams, the project provides an opportunity to apply technology and knowledgedeveloped by the university’s Center for Economic and Environmental Development to the socialand environmental challenges presented by the rise of tourism and related development in thePunta Cana region. By implementing its research methods of culturing aquatic animals forcommercial scale, the CEED will be able to expand the development and capabilities of its marineornamental  sh hatchery, opening that experience and learning to students.“We’ll be able to give students an experience at Roger Williams where they can go from justlearning about the species to commercially producing them,” RWU Assistant Professor of MarineBiology Andrew Rhyne said. “That’s a very rare thing to be able to do. At the same time, we’ll beable to expand species that are in the aquarium trade. This will maybe inject new species into thetrade, as well, since many of the species that will be raised are not cultured at commercial levels.”RWU faculty and students at CEED will serve as consultants for the pilot project and assemble thehatchery grow-out systems that will then be shipped to the Dominican Republic for installation.Potential exists for onsite summer internships at the hatchery.Rhyne, who oversees the ornamental  sh hatchery at RWU, helped initiate the partnership withRainieri a er a site visit to the resort’s marine lab.Ground breaking for the hatchery is under way. The state-of-the-art facility is scheduled to beoperational in early 2018. The hatchery will follow industry best practices and will not introduceexotic or invasive species to the region.The foundation plans to hire a hatchery manager who will be based at RWU before transitioning toPunta Cana. Funding for the hatchery pilot program will come from Grupo Puntacana as well as agrant awarded to the foundation by the Inter-American Development Bank for coral reef restoration.The bank is the largest source of development  nancing for Latin America and the Caribbean.Some of the species targeted for culture include the royal gramma (Gramma loreto), various gobies(e.g., Elacatinus hortsi) and peppermint shrimps (e.g., Lysmata jundalini).ACADEMICS ALUMNI FEINSTEIN SCHOOL OF SOCIAL AND NATURAL SCIENCES11/1/2018 RWU and Grupo Puntacana to Partner in Building Ornamental Fish Hatchery in Dominican Republic | Roger Williams Universityhttps://www.rwu.edu/news/news-archive/rwu-and-grupo-puntacana-partner-building-ornamental-fish-hatchery-dominican-republic 3/3

https://docs.rwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1261&amp;context=weekatroger_featured_news

RWU and Grupo Puntacana to Partner in Building Ornamental Fish Hatchery in Dominican Republic

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

HELIN Digital Commons

DOCS@RWU