Artificial reef building offers hope as super El Niño looms
21 Jun 2014, 8:01 PM
Zaheena Rasheed
In the turquoise lagoon of Banyan Tree Vabbinfaru, Moosa Shan dove down and cleared sand from a large block of cement. There, he placed several balls of marine cement and attached broken fragments of live coral. The balls would harden within hours and provide a critical stable base for coral growth.
Vabbinfaru’s shallow lagoon is dotted with coral gardens of all ages. The oldest garden has been there for fifteen years. The small fragments have now flourished into a vibrant colony, with ornamental fish darting amongst thorny branches and iridescent blue clams visible in the crevices of boulder corals.
The Banyan Tree hotel chain pioneered coral propagation or artificial reef building in the Maldives following a mass coral die off in 1998.
That year, the global El Niño weather event warmed Maldivian waters to 33 degrees Celsius, resulting in coral polyps expelling the algae living in their tissues and bleaching white. The algae provide the polyps with its food, and polyps died after a prolonged period without food.
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