Reef Check in Malaysia: Protect our coral reefs

Intan Maizura Ahmad Kamal New Straits Times 19 May 12;

Coral reefs are economically, culturally and aesthetically important, learns Intan Maizura Ahmad Kama

“LOOK what I found, mama. Cantik-kan (isn’t it beautiful?),” I remember my little one saying to me on a beach sojourn some months back, her little hand tentatively holding up a piece of dried coral for me to admire.

She wanted to find some more so that she could bring them home to decorate our modest aquarium. Unfortunately, I had to pique her excitement. I remember telling her that corals belong in the sea and it wasn’t good to destroy anything in nature.

I recall her retort: “But it’s just a piece of rock... it’s not alive.”

Oh, but it is. Suffice to say corals are often mistaken for rocks or plants, but they are actually composed of tiny, fragile animals known as coral polyps. When people say coral, they’re in fact referring to these little animals and the skeletons they leave behind after they die.

“Corals or more specifically, hard corals, are the architects of coral reefs, one of the greatest natural wonders of the world’s ocean,” says Julian Hyde, Reef Check Malaysia’s affable general manager during a lunchtime chat.

“Unfortunately, they’re facing a threatened existence as a result of rising ocean temperatures and human activities, including destructive fishing and marine pollution.”

Reef Check is a non-profit organisation and the world’s largest international coral reef monitoring programme involving volunteer recreational divers and marine scientists.

Although coral reefs occupy less than one per cent of the world’s ocean floor, they’re one of the most biologically diverse ecosystems on Earth. In fact, some 25 per cent of marine life are found in and around coral reefs.

“The health of coral reefs is a sensitive barometer for the health of our oceans and our planet,” says Hyde, who came to here 14 years ago and started his career here with an environmental consultancy company before moving to Tioman Island to run a dive centre.

But with three-quarters of reefs under threat, efforts to identify and mitigate specific stresses and thereby preserve corals are now more important than ever. This year, says Hyde, Reef Check Malaysia will be trying to collect information to contribute to the study of coral reproduction, which will hopefully lead to better management of coral reefs in the country.

Unless these corals are replaced through successful reproduction followed by settlement and metamorphosis of the coral seed called planula larvae, the reef goes into decline, and the important functions and benefits of the coral reef are lost.

ECONOMIC IMPORTANCE
Coral reefs are not only home to a huge number of ocean dwelling fish, they also feed, protect and inspire hundreds of millions of people around the world. “Reefs are tremendously important economically,” adds the 50-year-old Yorkshire-man who’s married to a Malaysian.

“When you think about how many tourists come to this country... yes, they go to KL for the shopping and may be Penang and Malacca for the history, but there’s also a large number of them who look forward to making the trip to the islands for snorkelling or diving. If we don’t have those reefs, I believe a significant chunk of our tourism attraction will go. Islands like Redang, Kapas and Perhentian rely on their reefs for visitor traffic.”

Without these tourists, the local economy will suffer, says Hyde. People living on the island will be without jobs. Some work is being done on putting values on reefs but things are still in the early stages, he shares. “Latest figures suggest that our reefs are actually worth RM50 billion a year — that’s serious stuff. Thousands of people around the country are employed working in resorts, dive centres as snorkelling operators... they’re all being employed by the coral reefs so we have to start looking after them.”

THREATS TO CORALS

Corals face two different kinds of threats — local and global. The former can comprise damages incurred as a result of development, for example, siltation as a result of trees being chopped down and when there’s a lot of waste and sewage pollution caused by large numbers of people on the island. Divers and snorkellers too can contribute to the damage. “But we can still manage these things,” says Hyde.

And then there’s the global threat, which effectively refers to global warming, which in turn leads to coral bleaching. “And more recently people are talking about ocean acidification. As a local organisation working with the local communities, with Marine Park Department, there’s nothing we can do about the global threats. What we can do is manage and reduce the local threats so that the reef is as healthy as possible, so that when the global threats come along, the reef is healthier and is better able to withstand the negative impacts.”

WORKING WITH COMMUNITIES

In Perhentian, Reef Check has been working with resorts, dive operators and snorkelling guides for the last couple of years to get them to understand the importance of the reefs and the roles they can play in managing them. “And just to give them a better voice we helped them to set up an association of operators there, which is now able to easily engage with the government for example, in things like the waste problem,” says Hyde.

“We’ve also done some work in the village communities like educating the kids about the reefs and their value, and what they can do to preserve them.”

Their hard work has borne fruit. “We’ve made progress with the waste management problem so there’s less trash going into the water,” says Hyde. “Everybody knows what the problems are and we now think we know what the solution is. We’re presently looking to secure funding to try and reduce the pollution from the resorts. That will take another stress away from the reefs. If we can reduce all of these local threats, our reefs will be as healthy as we can make them.”

EXCITING DISCOVERIES

Coral reefs and coral reef science don’t change as fast as computer science, chuckles Hyde, when asked whether there’ve been any exciting discoveries. “It’s a slowly evolving thing. The latest thing that’s catching our interest now is a concept called ‘resilience’, which goes back to that concept of building healthy reefs and keeping reefs healthy, minimising and managing local threats so that they can withstand the external threats. This is exciting because it can be executed on a very local level.”

Involving the local people means that you effectively give them the responsibility of managing the reefs, Hyde explains.

“They’re the ones who’ve been fishing there for generations, they know where the fish are, they know how things are changing, they run the local businesses on the island, they have an economic interest in making sure that the reefs are healthy, so why not involve them?”

Unfortunately, they’re not so involved at the moment, says Hyde. “The department is striving to find ways to get them involved and there are several programmes currently going on. One of them is the Rakan Park programme on Tioman, which involves some of the local population. They’re helping the department to understand a bit more about what’s happening on the island.”

He adds: “They’re now talking about a programme, which will hand over some of the management responsibilities to the local population. If you look at successful marine management around the world, it always involves the local population.”

PREVENTION IS KEY

Every year, we’re learning more about corals, how they live and how they replenish their numbers. An exciting phenomenon is the process of mass coral spawning, an occasion during which numerous species of coral spawn at the same time, releasing billion upon billion of eggs and sperm. “Not much is known about coral reproduction to date,” concedes Hyde. “However, what we do know approximately when it will occur, which is around the full moon following the spring equinox. This year, mass coral spawning was predicted to occur two to three days before or after April 6, between 8pm and 10pm.”

This kind of knowledge helps in preserving these precious resources, as well as allow us to improve the opportunities for recovery when damage occurs. Hyde adds: “However, prevention will always be the key. No matter how successful reseeding is, we cannot speed up the growth rate of corals. Large coral colonies cannot be replaced in less than the several hundred years it took them to attain that size.”

Email wecare@reefcheck.org.my if you want to get involved in reef preservation.

Corals survival

What do corals need to survive?

Sunlight: Corals need to grow in shallow water where sunlight can reach them. Corals depend on the zooxanthellae (algae) that grows inside of them for oxygen and other things, and since this algae needs sunlight to survive, corals also need sunlight to survive. Corals rarely develop in water deeper than 50 metres.

Clear water: Corals need clear water that lets sunlight through to survive. They don’t thrive well when the water is cloudy. Sediment and plankton can cloud water, which decreases the amount of sunlight that reaches the zooxanthellae.

Warm water temperature: Reef-building corals require warm water conditions to survive. Different corals living in different regions can withstand various temperature fluctuations. However, corals generally live in water temperatures of 20º-32ºC.

Clean water: Corals are sensitive to pollution and sediments. Sediments can settle on coral, blocking out sunlight and smothering coral polyps. Pollution from sewage and fertilisers increase nutrient levels in the water, harming corals. When there are too many nutrients in the water, the ecological balance of the coral community is altered.

Saltwater: Corals need saltwater to survive and require a certain balance in the ratio of salt to water. This is why corals don’t live in areas where rivers drain fresh water into the ocean.

Source: The Coral Reef Alliance (www.coral.org)