Under funding from the US Department of State a regional workshop was conducted with coordination support from Reef Check Dominican Republic. The workshop gathered 18 participants from 6 countries in the region.
18 representatives from government agencies, scientific institutions, enforcement institutions, NGOs and natural resource trustees made up the group.
The Dominican Republic (DR), which hosted the first CSI regional workshop in April 2008, trained eighteen participants from six countries in the region. Ruben Torres of Reef Check Dominican Republic, who coordinated the workshop, has since reported that the DR is working to develop their own in-water investigative team, which would be multi-agency and multidisciplinary in nature.
Application of their training was used in an investigation of a large-scale grounding that occurred on the reefs of the Dominican Republic. Similarly, participants from Guatemala have used their training to negotiate the evaluation of a ship grounding site within the Punta de Manabique Marine Reserve. The Mario Dary Foundation are expecting to be able to sponsor a complete CSI field kit and work in collaboration with other stakeholders to form a cross border CSI Investigation Team with Honduras.
