Coral Restoration
Coral reefs protect our shorelines from being vulnerable to erosion and rising sea levels. A loss of coral reefs would push over 200 million coastal communities out of their homes.
Maldives
In March 2021 I engaged in coral restoration in the Indian ocean, taking fragments of broken coral, and attaching it with a zip tie along a rope, allowing the coral to grow, until they became large enough to be planted on the reef.
This helps off set the reefs we are loosing through a number of environmental stressors
and also create homes for many marine fish and critters.
The corals on the adopted rope in the nursery have been showing very promising signs of survival and growth. The majority of them have now grown over the rope itself, giving them greater stability and vastly increasing their chances of survival. Some of them are already getting pretty large!
A small number of fragments on the rope have died since being adopted into the nursery. Fragmentation and growth of new colonies is a natural part of coral evolutionary ecology, and it is usually a process with a high death rate. Coral nurseries aim to maximise the chances of the fragments surviving this vulnerable stage, but even so, a few fragments dying is to be expected and the number of fatalities on your adopted rope is well within the acceptable amount.
My second coral reef project invovled launching a campaign, where one could ‘gift’ a coral reef.
Andamans
Raksha Bandhan is a Hindu festival that celebrates the love of a brother for his sister. On this day, sisters tie a ‘rakhi’ on the wrists of their brothers to protect them against evil influences and pray for their long life and happiness. We also exchange gifts. So before Raksha Bandhan 2021, I launched a campaign where one could “gift” a coral reef by becoming a ‘reef guardian’, sponsoring the upkeep of a reef. I did this in collaboration with Reef Watch, a marine conservation organisation that works as a custodian of coral reefs in the Andaman Islands. I was able to raise enough funds for one reef structure which will be cared for by Reef Watch for a year!
- Andamans, Coral Reef Update
