What
is the state of the nearest coral reef to your home?
Is it thriving suffering great swathes of bleaching
and anchoring damage? Chances are most divers could
give you an idea of a reefs health but how accurate
would that data be?
Perhaps
you've read statements like this one "60 percent
of the worlds corals reefs have already been lost and
the rest are under threat". Have you ever wondered
where these numbers come from? Most divers I talk to
seem to have the impression that the governments of
the countries with coral reefs maintain full time research
teams diligently assessing the reefs day in day out.
Would
it surprise you to learn that the great majority of
the world's reefs are not mapped, catalogued, or monitored
in any way.
Probably not if you stopped to think about it. Surveying
and monitoring reefs is time consuming and expensive
and funding is usually quickly exhausted. Therefore
most surveys are limited in time and duration. Part
of the problem is scale; the ocean is massive, even
small fringing reefs take thousands of man-hours to
map and monitor.
The
Reefwatch Worldwide program was started some ten years
ago. Initially an information sharing network between
independent researchers, the project attracted more
members and funded expeditions to the Philippines, Mexico,
Egypt, Kenya, the Maldives, Indonesia and Thailand.
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Whilst providing a valuable chance for the researchers
to meet and exchange ideas whilst working together,
these expeditions only reinforced the belief that a
means of funding full time studies was the only way
forward.
Most
of the early members of the Reefwatch project had backgrounds
in diving and Marine biology, lacking funding the researchers
often worked as diving instructors and did survey work
on their days off or even during lunch breaks between
training dives. So it seemed only logical to strengthen
that link between dive centre and research unit. Each
project is now funded by the activities of its own dive
center. Data collected is added to a global database
and is shared with other coral monitoring organizations.
Reefwatch
Worldwide has been operating in Krabi for two and a
half years, identifying and classifying which species
are resident around the local islands, Koh Phi Phi,
Shark Point and the King Cruiser. The behavior and abundancy
of many fish and invertebrate species is also being
studied, using this data we will soon be producing a
guide to the local marinelife that should help all divers
and snorkellers to accurately identify all the species
they are seeing.
A
coral monitoring and observation program is also in
place and constantly mapping and assessing set areas
of the reef. Using digital photography to record the
condition of corals allows us to easily track incidents
of bleaching, sedimentation and anchoring damage, whilst
also learning about coral growth rates and how each
species copes with being injured.
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We
also perform regular checks on the all the areas dives
sites to check for lost mooring buoys, dumped garbage,
and fishing nets. Any damage to coral is also noted and
follow up dives sent to assess and record it.
Although
Reefwatch Worldwide has a full time staff working on these
projects, a large proportion of our data is gathered by
divers we train on site. Interested divers completing
PADI courses and doing fun dives often ask to help out
with data gathering, mooring buoy replacement, and fishing
net removals. The techniques for accurately assessing
reefs conditions can easily be learned in a few days.
Volunteers prepared to meet their own costs are trained
here and interested parties can even go on to found their
own Reefwatch projects.
(Reefwatch worldwide would like to assure all divers we
don't really go round hitting people who grab coral with
hammers… honest)!
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