DBMS is a Jamaican non-profit organisation incorporated in 2025, whose mission is the protection and restoration of the marine environment in the Duncans area of Trelawny Parish in northern Jamaica.

The Derby Beach Marine Association (DBMA) board is made up of representatives from the Derby Beach Fisher Friendly Society and local residents of the Silver Sands community who came together officially in late 2024 to accommodate a two-part proposal to 1) elicit a no-fishing zone within the waters off Duncans Bay/Silver Sands and 2) sponsor the restoration of critically rare corals out on the reef.

DBMA board members and consultants from the Oracabessa Marine Trust pose for a photo in January 2026

Project Team

  • Felix Charnley MSc - Coral Project Founder & Research Lead

    Felix is a specialist in coral reef restoration ecology with a ten year background in community-based grassroots conservation in the Caribbean and Latin America and a Master of Science in tropical coastal ecosystem management from the University of the West Indies.

    Felix founded the Derby Beach coral programme upon realising the potential of the local conditions at Silver Sands for gene banking corals in-situ semi-permanently, in response to a mass dieback of Jamaica's most threatened coral species.

  • Syrece Evans - Co-Coral Project Lead

    Syrece is a marine biologist, certified scuba diver and skilled freediver who graduated from the University of the West Indies (UWI) in 2024. She divides her time between working as an assistant at the UWI Discovery Bay Marine Laboratory and applying her knowledge and field skills at Derby Beach.

    Syrece has played a key role in the coral program at Derby Beach since summer 2025, surveying and transporting distant survivors, expanding the nurseries and tracking diversity within our revitalised coral population.

  • Nones "Moco” Scott - Coral Farmer

    Moco is a skilled freediver and long-distance swimmer from Duncans whose main occupation is artisanal spearfishing. In 2026 he joined the project as a coral farmer, conducting regular maintenance and care in the nurseries and periodically increasing the number of corals in culture.

  • Mario Roxburgh - Coral Farmer

    Mario is a freediver and long-distance swimmer originally from St. Elizabeth who has swum the reefs of Mesoamerica as an artisanal fisherman and compared the status of those corals to Jamaica’s. Inspired by the opportunity to rewrite Jamaica's coral conservation story, Mario joined the project team in 2026 as a regular coral farmer.

  • Hosang “Johnny Blaze” Plummer - Project Co-Founder & Coral Farmer

    Hosang is a part-time fisherman and full-time chef and entrepreneur in the Derby Beach fishing village. In early 2024 he co-founded the coral programme after expressing his aspirations to regenerate the corals on the reef. Today he collaborates as a part-time coral farmer and ambassador for the project in the community.​​

  • Michael Muschett - Scuba Diver, Coral Farmer

    Michael is a farmer, freediver and certified scuba diver from Falmouth with several years of experience in various coral conservation projects in Jamaica. Since late 2023, Michael has formed part of the early sourcing of parent corals that are today represented in the nursery, and continues to provide occasional support in the field.