Coral Transplantation to Saving Coral Reefs

Nusa Dua Reef Foundation initiated a coral rehabilitation project to restore degraded reefs around intertidal area of The Nusa Dua, located in Southeast coast of Bali Island. A massive coral mining in past decades has occurred, causing coral reefs disappear, while many corals recruitment has died as impact of mass coral bleaching event in 2016. Coral bleaching and associated mortality not only have negative impacts on coral communities, but they also impact fish communities and the human communities that depend on coral reefs and associated fisheries for livelihoods and well-being.

A small pilot project has started on 20th July 2016 with 50 corals fragment taken from coral farming, generally Acropora sp, Montipora sp and Galaxea. Coral fragments have been transplanted on three spider’s structure artificial reefs and dead corals. Two months later, on September 2016, more 200 corals fragment have been transplanted on 40 spider’s structure. Spider’s structure are metal structures that have been designed, built, and secured to the reef. The technology is based on a simple structure that does not shade the corals very much or impede water flow around them, enabling them to thrive.

After a year, many corals showed growth well. Some corals died due to stress condition before being transplanted and couldn’t survive with new environments. The growing corals transplantation progress shows that water conditions support new corals. It certainly gives hope for this project for scale-up in the future.

NDRF now is calling for support this project.  A crowd funding platform has launching recently through www.ekosea.com to support this project and to give individuals, communities and companies the opportunity to engage directly in saving coral reefs by becoming adopters.

LET’S HELP SAVE THE NUSA DUA REEF!