the project: Coral reef monitoring
On a warm July day in 1997, Naneng and Icha donned their diving equipment and slipped into the warm waters of Bali Barat National Park.
As a university student, Naneng was carrying out research here, and this was her first underwater foray in the area.
The divers gradually sank below the surface, taking in the underwater landscape, until it hit them: the coral cover and the life it sustained here were exceptional - in fact, says Naneng, it was the best she had ever seen. "Walls of fish were drifting in front of us", she recalls.2001. Naneng is back in the water in Bali Barat, spearheading the Reefcheck programme for WWF. And below the sea surface, the landscape is totally different, with coral bleaching having made its unmistakable mark.
Is there a reef doctor?
Since the bleaching event took place, Bali Barat has become the pilot site for WWF Friends of the Reef's coral monitoring efforts (among several other initiatives). The focus is on documenting the impacts sustained by corals and how they are adapting to them, a basic component of WWF's integrated strategy in Bali Barat to mitigate the impacts of climate change. And Naneng is back in the water, documenting the healing process.
The monitoring process
In Bali Barat, Friends of the Reef initiated the coral monitoring in 2001. The bi-annual efforts cover most of the Park, span 7-10 days, and involve people from FKMPP - the local community forum facilitated by WWF - the National Park and several students who are trained as part of the process.
While WWF started the monitoring efforts in 1999, before Friends of the Reef came into being, only since 2003 have the monitoring procedures been designed to measure coral bleaching and resilience.
The design uses a standardized coral monitoring, strengthened by integrating coral bleaching monitoring protocol, developed in collaboration with the World Fish Centre and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA). Standardization is important in order to compare changes in coral condition and quality accurately from one year to the next...
The need for educated divers
WWF is also raising the awareness of divers, by asking them to Keep their EYeS on the reef (KEYS strategy), and to report on the state of the coral they see. Moreover, WWF works on specialty diver courses that include coral bleaching reporting with diver certification bodies such as ADS.
Coral on the comeback?
Now as a Scientific Advisor for Friends of the Reef, Naneng studies coral bleaching and resilience in Bali Barat. Over the last few years, she has already been seeing some improvements of the coral situation.
On one hand this is due to the decrease in dynamite fishing, thanks to the patrolling by the National Park and FKMPP, the local community forum facilitated by WWF. But there is also the natural resilience of the coral. In fact, some areas in the National Park are increasing in cover. In Bali Barat, there has been an increase of about 20% of hard coral cover following the 1998 bleaching event.
Why rehabilitate corals?
In order for corals to establish themselves and grow, sometimes it is necessary to bring them from other places and 'plant them'.
The prohibitive cost of the coral monitoring - US$2,000 per effort - means that at present, such activities are not being integrated and implemented by the National Park single-handedly.
Coral rehab
Coral reef rehabilitation is an effort to transplant corals from one place to another where they have been depleted.
