The island of Utila is part of the Bay Islands archipelago which lies 30 miles off the Caribbean coast of Honduras. Utila is surrounded by fringing coral reefs and forms the southern part of the Meso-American barrier reef system, (the second largest barrier reef in the world) which connects north through Guatemala and Belize up to the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico.

Satellite image of Utila

Situated on the edge of the continental shelf beside a precipice that drops to over 1000m, Utila is a volcanic knoll surrounded by a collection of sandy cays that are linked by mangroves and shallow sea grass beds. Its unique location and wide variety of marine habitats makes Utila an ideal centre for research and a place to study many different aspects of tropical marine ecology.

In addition to its coral reefs and related habitats, the island has large populations of both visiting and resident mega-fauna including whale sharks and the spinner and rough tooth dolphin whose population dynamics and reasons for visiting this area are scarcely understood. As part of an island chain and a larger regional reef system Utila is also ideally situated to investigate the larger questions on the connectivity of marine systems at different spatial scales and the effects of local versus regional impacts on coral reef health.

Originally settled by pirates and European buccaneers the native language of Utila as with the rest of the Bay Islands is English and it was a crown protectorate until being given to Honduras. The islands maintained a distinct identity and culture to the rest of Honduras seeming like a country within a country. However, as emigration from the mainland increases as well as from other parts of the world, the population has become a multicultural blend of white islanders, latino mainlanders, international immigrants, indigenous Garifuna and Afro-Caribbean islanders as well as the plethora of tourists who swell the resident population.

The main population centre is in East Harbour on the main island of Utila. A second smaller population is located off the western end of the island on some of the Cays. Whilst the economy of the main town is underpinned by dive tourism the Cays are mainly sustained by fishing and so two distinct socio-economic communities have developed but both with a direct reliance on the natural resources that surround the island.