Artificial reef restores village fishing grouns in Bunaken<\/p>\n
Mark Erdmann
\nContributor
\nBunaken, North Sulawesi<\/p>\n
Throughout this country and Southeast Asia, the illegal practice
\nof blast fishing has destroyed vast areas of once productive
\ncoral reef areas.<\/p>\n
Homemade explosives are effective in killing large schools of
\nfish with a single blast, but unfortunately also destroy the
\ndelicate coral framework that serves as shelter for coral reef
\nfishes.<\/p>\n
Repeated blasting of prime fishing grounds quickly reduces
\nreefs to rubble fields that support very few fish and often show
\nno signs of recovery, even decades after the blasting stops. The
\nconstantly shifting coral rubble smothers any new coral colonies
\nand largely prevents recovery.<\/p>\n
Fortunately, the science (and art!) of reef rehabilitation is
\nbeginning to make headway in \"jump-starting\" the natural recovery
\nprocess for those reef areas where management has brought blast-
\nfishing under control, but legacy damage remains.<\/p>\n
Villagers from Manado Tua Island in Bunaken National Park here
\nrecently received a generous grant from the Seacology Foundation
\nof California (www.seacology.org) to become the world's first
\nlarge-scale demonstration site for the new EcoReef reef
\nrehabilitation technology.<\/p>\n
EcoReefs are snowflake-shaped modules made of nontoxic,
\nmicroporous ceramic and designed to mimic branching coral
\ncolonies. The modules are anchored in clusters into rubble
\nfields, where they act to stabilize the substrate and provide
\nimmediate shelter for reef fishes.<\/p>\n
Over time, the modules are colonized by corals and other reef
\nanimals that will eventually overgrow the ceramic modules,
\ncreating a natural reef that supports productive reef fisheries
\nonce again.<\/p>\n
The Seacology Foundation awarded the EcoReefs grant (worth
\nover US$20,000) to Manado Tua II village in recognition of the
\nvillagers' strong commitment to preserving their reef systems and
\nthe fisheries that depend upon them by designating a series of
\nfive \"no-take\" sanctuary zones around their island.<\/p>\n
The villagers requested that Seacology fund a reef
\nrehabilitation program for a roughly 1 hectare stretch of reef
\nthat was once the most productive fishing area on the island
\nbefore blast fishers leveled the reef over 15 years ago. Over the
\ncourse of three weeks of mostly heavy seas and bad weather,
\nManado Tua villagers worked in close coordination with USAID's
\nNatural Resources Management Project and 11 dive operators from
\nthe North Sulawesi Watersports Association (NSWA; see website at
\nwww.bunaken.info) to transport, assemble and install 620 EcoReef
\nmodules.<\/p>\n
Beginning on Dec. 15, 2003, the villagers set up two enormous
\noutside workshops, where men, women and children worked side by
\nside for three days to assemble and epoxy the modules. On Dec.
\n17, the dive operators braved foul weather to return (with a
\nnumber of interested guests) to transport the assembled modules
\nto the rehabilitation site and install them underwater.<\/p>\n
During the installation, the villagers held a special service
\nto bless the reefs, followed by a gala feast together with the
\ndive operator staff who were volunteering time to install the
\nEcoReefs. Approximately 60 divers donated several hundred hours
\nof dive time to install roughly half of the modules before large
\nwaves forced the boats to return home.<\/p>\n
Over the course of Christmas and New Year's celebrations,
\nseveral dedicated dive operators continued to make opportunistic
\nruns to Manado Tua through heavy seas to install additional
\nmodules, but the weather prevented many from participating.
\nFinally, on Jan. 10, NSWA operators showed up again in force to
\ncomplete the job and install the remaining 190 modules.<\/p>\n
While the Manado Tua villagers have pledged patience in
\nallowing three to five years for the rehabilitation project to
\nincrease coral cover and fish abundance in the area, many dive
\noperators were astonished to see the rapid colonization of the
\nEcoReef modules.<\/p>\n
Over the three-week period before the second \"installation
\nparty\", the EcoReef modules were colonized by various algae and
\nwere already sheltering a large number of young herbivorous
\nfishes, who were busily grazing algae off the modules as divers
\nworked around them.<\/p>\n
Villagers have been excitedly monitoring the progress of the
\nrehabilitation site, which they consider to be a marine
\n\"community bank account\" that will provide fish resources for
\ntheir grandchildren -- provided they carefully protect it from
\nfurther disturbances.<\/p>\n
Photographs and video of the Manado Tua rehabilitation project
\nwill soon be available for viewing on the EcoReefs website,
\nwww.ecoreefs.com.<\/p>\n
The writer is the North Sulawesi provincial advisor to USAID's
\nNatural Resources Management Project.<\/p>",
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