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Unlike most of Thailand's most popular islands, the charms of Koh Ha are exclusively underwater. The frenzy of the boats that surround the rocky archipelago starts each day around 10 am, while divers and scuba divers arrive and prepare to marvel at the still-present coral in the area, 35 km away. southeast of Phi Phi Islands. In the midst of the hustle and bustle of tourists, however, some are here for a different purpose. They want to not only admire the corals, but also try to save them.
Coral reefs around the world are in danger. According to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), between 2014 and 2017, hot water was the world's longest ever bleaching coral bloom event. Australia's Great Barrier Reef, the largest reef system in the world, has lost about 30 percent of its corals, according to a report in the scientific journal. Nature in April ended. An article published in 2011 by the World Resources Institute, in collaboration with several organizations, including The Nature Conservancy and the UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Center, suggests that more than 90% of the world's coral will be gone by 2050.
Save the world's coral to avoid eradicating irreversible costs
Scientists claim that reefs are an essential part of marine ecosystems, harboring between a quarter and a third of marine species. Studies show that without them, food chains and local fishing industries could collapse. These products have also been found to protect coastlines from erosion and extreme events, and research has shown that coral reefs can absorb up to 97% of wave energy.
To raise awareness of the seriousness of the situation, the International Coral Reef Initiative declared 2018 "International Year of Reefs".
The efforts of scientists and ecologists to save the planet's coral reefs have been growing since the 1970s. But helping recovery is a slow and laborious process that requires constant monitoring, as well as funding and resources often. nonexistent.
In spite of their stone appearance, the corals that form reefs, called hard corals, are actually living organisms, polyps that secrete calcium carbonate to form a protective skeleton. Like many endangered species, corals breed slowly and their growth rate varies from a few millimeters to 10 cm per year, depending on the species, the available food, the temperature of the fish. water, salinity and turbulence. It sometimes takes 10,000 years for a mature coral reef to form.
Tourism is largely responsible for the destruction of coral reefs in the media worldwide, with reports focusing on the hordes of visitors who intervene and manipulate the corals and pollute the surrounding waters. In Southeast Asia, several countries – including Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines – have closed popular tourist sites to allow corals to recover.
Some advocates of the environment, however, have come to view tourism – and diving in particular – as the solution to the global decline of coral reefs.
Anuar Abdullah, oceanographer and defender of the Malaysian environment, believes he has found the solution to rehabilitate the reefs of the world. By providing recreational divers with simple "coral gardening" techniques, reef restoration projects can be quickly deployed.
Coral transplantation raises hope for survival of Great Barrier Reef
Inspired by the reforestation techniques used in tropical forests, Anuar began in 1981 to study how these same methods could be applied to "underwater tropical forests" because coral reefs are often mentioned.
"It was not easy, during the first 15 years there were only failures," says the 58-year-old scientist, as he led a training course on spreading corals on Koh Ha.
Anuar wanted to find an "organic alternative" to the dominant engineering solutions, which relied on artificial structures, such as concrete or scuttled ships, to build new reefs.
"It's not throwing things into the water that you will be able to rehabilitate the corals," he says. "This is called pollution."
Coral gardening involves growing corals in nurseries and then replanting them on the reefs. These methods have been gaining popularity among ecologists over the past few decades because "moving engineering solutions, such as physically rebuilding concrete reefs, to ecological solutions, or rebuilding with corals, is much more cost-effective. generally recovery is more successful, "says Dalton Hesley, senior research associate at the Benthic Ecology and Coral Reef Restoration Laboratory at the University of Miami, United States. "It's a win-win."
Some of the techniques involved, however, are complex and many still require artificial structures. Anuar started looking for ways to quickly and efficiently bind corals to rocks found on the seabed. The breakthrough took the form of the coral catalyst he developed during a test project in the Perhentian Islands in Malaysia between 2004 and 2005. The adhesive compound will dissolve in a few weeks, leaving the living coral attached on the rock. In 2006, the coral catalyst was ready to be used more widely.
As in the case of tropical forest rehabilitation, the process of reef rejuvenation begins with the selection of "seedlings" to be grown in the nursery.
"We are looking for broken pieces of coral and before we die, we save them and give them a second chance to live. When they grow up, they will become a new colony, "says Anuar.
After identifying the "sick" coral, the pieces are brought to the surface, where they are attached to a rock using the catalyst, and then placed in an underwater nursery.
"Just put a little bit like this in the rock," Anuar tells a group of five divers who went to Koh Ha to learn the technique, showing them a fragment he cut into a coral more great.
Simplifying the technique would have been useless without a way to put it into practice, but, as a passionate diver, Anuar recognized that those who shared his passion would be the perfect partners in coral restoration projects.
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In 2012, Anuar began organizing courses in diving schools and resorts, mainly in Southeast Asia, through Ocean Quest, a conservation organization based in Kuala Lumpur. in 2010. Today, Ocean Quest has representatives in Brunei, Maldives and Vietnam, as well as in Mexico and the Caribbean, and offers courses in partnership centers and diving schools, ranging from day workshops to understanding coral gardening who qualify to manage their own restoration projects.
To date, Ocean Quest has certified more than 800 trainers and 1,000 coral gardeners. Three of these trainers are based in Hong Kong, but although encouraging feasibility studies have been completed, no project is yet underway.
"Of these, about 100 people are actively growing corals or monitoring coral nurseries," Anuar says, and Ocean Quest is involved in more than 20 projects.
Manuel San Martín, from Buenos Aires, Argentina, attended the trainer course two years ago on the island of Koh Phi Phi and participates in two restoration programs in the area, a few kilometers north of Koh Ha.
In his more than 20 years as a diver, San Martín said, he witnessed the discoloration of coral reefs and found himself frustrated at being unable to participate in conservation efforts.
"Everyone who has been in the sea for a long time has seen reefs disappear. I wanted to do something about it, "says the 41-year-old, who runs Pura Vida Diving Koh Phi Phi. The opportunity came when he attended a coral propagation course led by Anuar. "These courses open the restoration of corals to divers, before it is reserved for scientists," says San Martín.
Saffron Kiddy did not intend to become a full time diver. Television producer in London, she decided to learn underwater videography to strengthen her resume. But after training at Koh Phi Phi in 2002, she found herself hooked. In order to be close to the sea, she moved to Koh Lanta, an island not far from Koh Ha, where she founded in 2006 the Scubafish diving school.
But the beauty under Koh Lanta disappears quickly.
"It's an area that desperately needs help. There are almost no coral left, "says Kiddy. "We participated in many environmental projects, but the feeling was that they were too small. We were looking for something more tangible.
Divers are good partners for this project because we are there every day. We can monitor and protect the coral if necessary
Kiddy saffron
This something came in the form of Anuar, when, in 2016, the Pimalai Resort and Spa of Koh Lanta organized an Ocean Quest training program and Kiddy was invited to attend. In December of the same year, Kiddy partnered with Anuar and the resort to launch a coral reef restoration project in Koh Ha.
Anuar trained the divers. Five of them were selected from Scubafish and assessed the area for diseased coral rehab and suitable nursery grounds. It was not easy. Corals are susceptible to early growth and many factors can lead to nursery failure, including wave action, pollution, and high visitor frequency.
"The first nursery was destroyed by a big storm in December," says Anuar. "We started again and rebuilt it in a more sheltered place."
Since Koh Ha is located in the Mu Koh Lanta Marine National Park, divers can not swim without a lifejacket, which helps protect the corals from tampering, but tourists remain a concern.
"Divers are good partners for this project because we are there every day," says Kiddy. "We can monitor and protect the coral if necessary."
The school provides dive tourists with an environmental briefing before excursions and monitors them to make sure no one is damaging the reefs.
"The spread will not determine the success of the project. What makes it successful is the whole system and the people who will do it, "says Anuar. "So we're primarily targeting divers as partners, but we're also trying to involve local communities, such as village leaders or schools, to understand the value of corals."
The role of local communities has been shown to be essential in similar projects in other parts of the world. In Florida, for example, the University of Miami's citizen science program, Rescue a Reef, which uses techniques similar to those of Ocean Quest, provides divers with a basic understanding of reef restoration, says Hesley. And in the Caribbean, several restoration projects using coral gardening methods engage with local communities.
"Part of the success you see [in those places] "Do they get a lot of local speakers," says the scientist. "Many of these communities depend on coral reefs and fishing to find out what's at stake."
North of Koh Ha, Maya Bay, with its idyllic stretch of sand made famous at the turn of the millennium Hollywood The beach, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, is perhaps the most famous example of the harm that tourism can cause to marine ecosystems. After the film's success, tourists began to arrive in the area by the thousands, boats were anchored in the bay and destroyed corals. Plastic and other wastes were discarded.
Sustainable tourism is key to the ambitious plans of the Malaysian Marine Park
On June 1, the government – citing a tourist count of 5,000 per day – closed Maya Bay to boats for four months in an advertising blast to allow the area to recover in a project in which Anuar participates.
Maya Bay is not unusual. According to Dhana Yingcharoen, director of the marine and coastal conservation division of the Department of Marine and Coastal Resources of Thailand, about 78 percent of the country's coral is in a "damaged" state. The most affected, he says, are those in the Similan Islands, in Phang Nga Province, Phi Phi Islands, Krabi, and Phuket's Racha Islands. A number of islands located in national parks now close each year during the rainy season.
"The reason for the closures is to protect the corals of a growing number of tourists," says Dhana, adding that the measure had already produced positive results in the Surin Islands.
Last year, a 20-year action plan for the conservation of coastal and marine resources was introduced. Administered by the Department of National Parks, Wildlife Conservation and the Department of Marine and Coastal Resources, it requires dive guides to successfully complete underwater conservation courses and limit marine activities to designated areas. .
However, experts believe that tourism is not the only threat to corals.
"It's not just global warming, pollution or acidification. You can not really point to one, "Anuar said. "Tourism has its own damaging effect, but fishing and the industry too, which pollute the waters".
The main factor, says Dhana, is the rise in water temperatures since 2011.
Hottest waters push corals to expel algae living in their tissues – a process known as bleaching, which makes corals white and can eventually kill them. Ocean acidification, caused by increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, is also a significant threat to coral reef survival.
In addition, some fear that a complete ban on coral tourism would do more harm than good. In an article published in 2017 in the peer-reviewed journal ScienceDirectScientists from the world's leading universities estimate the value of coral reef tourism at nearly $ 36 billion a year, more than 9% of the value of coastal tourism in coral reef countries. This money, they say, is not necessarily at the expense of healthy corals and can play a positive role in their preservation, helping to reduce harmful activities such as overfishing. According to scientists, reef tours can also help fund and encourage the conservation of corals.
"There are cases where tourism is good. This can be done in a sustainable way and adds value to the reef in terms of creating conditions where people will do more to take care of it, "says report co-author Mark Spalding. from the Department of Physics, Land and Environment. Science at the University of Siena, Italy.
Spalding gives the example to Indonesia, where fishermen have stopped using explosives to fish in order to become rangers and tour guides in areas where coral tourism is encouraged.
There is always controversy in the field of conservation. But if it is taught correctly and divers comply with the guidelines, it works
Manuel San Martín
Coral gardening has not been uncritical, arguing that restoration is relatively expensive and does not solve the problems that cause degradation. Resources, they say, would be better used to respond to government policies in areas such as carbon emissions. But even critics admit that it's better to do something than nothing at all.
"There is still controversy in the conservation area," says San Martín. "But if it's taught properly and the divers follow the guidelines, it works."
To ensure that the principles of the approach are respected, restoration projects require at least one full-time project manager, he explains.
"No real conservation project is possible only with volunteerism," says San Martín. "You must have people who are really committed."
Koh Ha is already encouraging hope. Less than two years after the start of the project, corals are developing in the nursery at an encouraging rate. In another year, some will be mature enough to be transplanted.
"It's far exceeded our expectations," says Kiddy. "With this project, you can see the results very quickly."
Now, we expect growth to be exponential as polyps become colonies that in turn grow and separate to form new colonies.
"We hope that with this project, we will be able to effectively save the corals from extinction in the area," says Kiddy.
To this end, she and her diving companions will continue to jump into the water every day to protect and nurture the wonder living beneath her surface.
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