GCRA
OVERVIEW
FAQ
NEWS
ARTICLES
PHOTOS
REEF ISSUES
RESTORATION
PAPERS
LINKS
|
|
|
|
GCRA Activities in May and
June 2004 UN Expert Meeting on Ocean Management in Small Island Developing States The meeting was held in Suva, Fiji, in order to develop action priorities for the January 2005 UN Summit of Heads of States of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in Mauritius. I gave invited talks on the impacts of global climate change on SIDS, on coral reef and fisheries restoration, and on tidal energy development, which were all very well received. There is good reason to expect that these presentations will be effective in influencing the priorities to be expressed at the forthcoming UN Summit. Documents from the meeting will be posted on the GCRA Web Site. UN funding is being sought for cooperative programs between the University of the South Pacific (a regional university serving 12 nations and territories) and the University of the West Indies (a regional university serving the English speaking Caribbean islands), and training and research in coral reef and fisheries restoration with GCRA was identified by both as a primary area for focus when such programs are developed. Hopefully this will get moving before the Summit. The Fijian Ambassador to the UN, and the Fiji Ministry of Foreign Affairs requested that projects be set up as soon as possible in Fijian villages. The Director of the Marine Science Program at the University of the South Pacific, Dr. Leon Zann, requested collaboration in setting up projects there, and assigned a USP student, Zaidy Khan to work on setting projects up. Progress will have to await funding from the UN SIDS program. Hatsororie (Helen Reef) Shore Protection Project A 500 foot (150 m) long breakwater, powered by 32 solar panels, was designed, constructed, and installed to protect Hatsororie Island (Helen Reef), Hatohobei Stae, Palau from erosion. This tiny island, about 150 m long and less than 50 m wide, is the only land on the largest atoll in Palau, which has been documented to be the richest reef in the Pacific in terms of diversity of corals, fish, and other forms of marine life. Because of its remoteness (700 km from Palau), and lack of permanent habitation, its remarkably dense populations of giant clams, large fish, and precious Trochus niloticus shells have been repeatedly stripped by shiploads of poachers from Indonesia, the Philippines and Taiwan. To protect their resources from being stolen, the people of Tobi Island, 40 miles away, the owners of the atoll, have had to station three rangers on the island to intercept poachers. Their hope is to see the atoll become a prime diving destination for live-aboard boats, which must pay a fee for access. The island is a bird nesting rookery of great importance, supporting vast populations of crested terns, which lay their eggs on the sand, white-headed terns, which lay their eggs in small trees, and blue footed boobies, which lay their eggs on the shipwrecks around the perimeter of the atoll reef. Large numbers of Frigate birds were also seen. The island is also a major nesting site for turtles, and fresh tracks of laying female turtles were seen every day, while many freshly hatched baby turtles were assisted to the water at night. During the bleaching episode of 1998 most of the corals died from heat, with devastating impact on the fish. The island already suffers serious erosion, being only a few centimeters above high tide, and the entire island and the sandbar it sits on are moving southeastwards at about 5 meters per year, where it will ultimately vanish into the deep lagoon. If the island is lost, so will a major part of Palau's Exclusive Economic Zone, which is crucial for tuna licensing revenues. Therefore Hatohobei State Governor Sabino Sackarias has requested help from GCRA to stabilize the island, restore the reefs and fisheries, and look into the prospect of creating a new artificial island near the main tidal channel. It took us four years to find funding for a pilot project, and since stabilizing the island was the first priority, the pilot project focused on constructing a breakwater, the longest such yet built in the world using this technology. The project was carried out by Tom Goreau and Wolf Hilbertz of GCRA, with the Hatohobei State Marine Rangers and volunteers from the Tobi Island community, including high school graduates who spent their summer vacation working with us. We were accompanied also by Caspar Henderson, a journalist from Oxford, UK, who plans to write articles about the project for major media and to prepare a book on the impacts of global warming on coral reefs. The project was greatly delayed to the fact that the only boat that goes to the island had to get emergency engine repairs in Manila, and then by a series of typhoons. It is extremely unusual that typhoons should affect this area, so close to the equator (2 degrees north) or so early in the year, and this may be due to global climate change. Therefore the project had to be delayed until the start of the unfavorable southwest monsoon season. During the project the weather became so rough from Super-Typhoon Dianmu that we were unable to leave for a long time, during which almost all supplies were exhausted. Nevertheless, despite the extremely difficult working conditions, the project was completed on schedule. The breakwater should create a sandbar where the island used to be 70 years ago, protecting the most severely eroding section and hopefully stabilizing the island. A full detailed report will be submitted next month. Malakal Project A coral nursery project at Malakal Island, Palau, set up in January 2003 in cooperation with Sam's Tours, a major dive shop, was checked. It was found to have stopped working due to a burnt out charger and a faulty cable. Both were repaired and the project is now operating again fully. A major focus of this project includes Giant Clams, as well as corals. We are working to get the Governors and the Chiefs of all the States of Palau to visit the project and pursue reef and fisheries restoration projects in each state. Palau reefs, some of the world's best, were severely damaged by high temperatures in 1998, and all the reefs around the main island of Babeldoab are now being heavily impacted from eroded sediments after the construction of the first road around the island. Guam Project A public lecture was given on global climate change threats to coral reefs and coral reef restoration. Collaborative research projects at the University of Guam Marine Laboratory were set up with Lee Goldman, graduate student, and Dr. Peter Schupp. These projects will measure the growth and settlement of corals on Biorock materials under a wide variety of conditions, in comparison to wide range of other substrates. These results will prove important for optimizing Biorock technology for increasing coral recruitment and for optimizing coral growth rates for coral reef restoration and for mariculture. Lee Goldman, who is doing graduate work under the supervision of Dr. Schupp, is an avid coral grower, and we expect that important results will emerge from this work. We will look into applying these results to field projects with the Guam Department of Fisheries at the earliest possible opportunity. Great Barrier Reef Project Meetings were held with the top management of Sunlovers cruises in Cairns, Queensland, Australia, one of the major day cruise tourism operators on the Great Barrier Reef. They have just received permission to set up a new $30 Million Pontoon to receive 3-400 tourists per day, with an education center, research facilities, etc., and permission to start a coral transplantation project to restore the reefs, which have been devastated by a crown of thorns starfish epidemic. Sunlovers is determined to be the leader in environmental restoration in the Great Barrier Reef, and has identified use of Biorock restoration as the ideal way to move ahead to restore their reef. The restoration permit will be active 35 days after our meeting, and they have a two year interval to restore the area before the new pontoon is opened. Major collaborative efforts should begin as soon as possible. Fiji Project Five villages were identified by the Fiji Ministry of Foreign Affairs as being interested in reef restoration projects; however all were regarded by our Fijian student, Ms. Zaidy Khan, as not having suitably accessible sties. Due to the short time interval available for a pilot project, and since establishing a new project would take more than a week of Kava ceremonies and discussions with all stakeholders, it was decided to add on to an already existing project. This project, a coral garden project collaboration between the Marine Protected Reserve of Tagaqe Village, Hideaway Resort, and Walt Smith International (a major grower of corals for the aquarium trade), has coral nubbins growing on epoxy substrates on racks, which are used for visitor education projects. In collaboration with Tim McLeod, general manager of Walt Smith International, the staff of Walt Smith, and volunteers form Tabaqe Village, a pilot project was set up which wired up three racks of the coral garden project, each getting a different current. Corals will be grown on these racks and on nearby control racks using a wide range of species. This project will be used: 1) to show the potential for cultivated corals to replace the trade in wild corals, and we will work with Walt Smith International to seek changes in the international certification rules of the coral trade to replace wild corals with cultivated ones. 2) to educate tourists on the potential for coral restoration, 3) to show Fijian villagers the potential benefits of reef and fisheries restoration projects and to establish new projects with Fijian villages in cooperation with the University of the South Pacific and the National Government. A meeting was held with Walt Smith in Los Angeles to develop a joint strategy to push for use of cultivated corals in the aquarium trade. Walt Smith has offered to give part of his keynote talk time to GCRA in a forthcoming conference of the aquarium trade in Boston to discuss the project. -- Dr. Thomas J. Goreau President Global Coral Reef Alliance 37 Pleasant Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA telephone: 617-864-4226, 617-864-0433 E-mail: goreau@bestweb.net Web site: http://www.globalcoral.org
|
|