SEPTEMBER <strong>2016</strong> CARIBBEAN COMPASS PAGE 12 See why the <strong>Caribbean</strong> is worth defending. Join The Nature Conservancy and help us Defend Paradise. The Nature Conservancy works throughout the region to protect seas, coastlines, and coral reefs on which we all depend. We need your help to protect our waters and our way of life. To find out how you can make a lasting impact on conservation in the <strong>Caribbean</strong> and to join our campaign to Defend Paradise, visit nature.org/defendparadise.
WE hear a lot about <strong>Caribbean</strong> coral reefs being damaged by hurricanes, boat groundings and coral bleaching. But did you know that there are “nurseries” in the region where corals are being raised to help restore damaged or degraded reefs? An article in the October 2011 issue of Scientific American magazine said, “Over the past few decades, a small international clan of scientists, alarmed by the sudden decline of corals, have created underwater nurseries aimed at ‘replanting’ corals to buttress wild populations. At first the effort was called quixotic and impossible, given the scale of the problem and the difficulty in raising corals. But after many trials and a few errors, coral nurseries are arising as a bona fide weapon in the fight to preserve a crucial ocean ecosystem.” In the <strong>Caribbean</strong> region, coral nurseries are located in Jamaica, The Bahamas, the US Virgin Islands, Bonaire, Curaçao, Colombia — and, now, in Mustique and Carriacou in the Grenadines. The primary focus of the <strong>2016</strong> annual meeting of the Grenadines Network of Marine Protected Areas, held earlier this year, was the role of coral nurseries in Coral Restoration: Growing Their Own in the Grenadines local knowledge, a site known as Whirlpool off the islet of Mabouya was chosen for the nursery, based on good water quality and on low levels of predators, human interference and seaweeds that could impede the corals’ growth. The Nature Conservancy was contacted for training and advice. Instead of “trees”, as used in Mustique, “tables” made of PVC-pipe grids were built and installed, and then “fragments of opportunity” — pieces of coral already broken off by natural fragmentation or storms, boat strikes, etcetera — were collected and used to populate the tables. Acroporids, such as elkhorn and staghorn corals, are the fastest growing corals and they naturally fragment to reproduce; elkhorn coral is found in Carriacou’s nursery. Local trained “coral gardeners” clean the tables twice a week, removing algae and snails and checking for signs of disease and bleaching. Measuring and monitoring are done monthly. Suitable out-planting sites are chosen according to factors such as the presence of acroporids and black spiny sea urchins (which help keep the area clear of seaweed), absence of disease and predators, and water quality and flow. As the corals are grown and outplanted, the tables are repopulated with more fragments. We know that we cannot create fully functional reefs. And it should always be kept COLIN FOORD / CORALMORPHOLOGIC.COM ALBA GARCIA Above: Monitoring a table of elkhorn fragments in Carriacou Right: Trees like this one are growing staghorn corals in Mustique. Corals reproduce by spawning as well as fragmentation; the presence of other acroporid corals on outplanting sites encourages transplanted corals to spawn in unison with their neighbors coral reef restoration efforts and effective reef management, and the Mustique and Carriacou coral nurseries were highlighted. A primary goal of the nurseries is to improve damaged reefs’ biological diversity and structure, and thus also strengthen the climate-change resilience of the reef and benefit coastal communities. A reef that has a high abundance of healthy and genetically diverse corals is better able to withstand or recover from disturbances. Natural recovery of a reef can take five to ten years or more, even if impediments to natural recovery such as pollution and overfishing are removed. A coral nursery can accelerate reef recovery by providing corals to be replanted on a reef. Their success is dependent on factors including sea and weather conditions at the site, maintenance and monitoring. Last year, the Coral Restoration Foundation (coralrestorationintl.org) helped develop the program now growing elkhorn, staghorn and blade fire coral in the Mustique Marine Conservation Area. In March 2015, a nursery was set up in Endeavour Bay and corals were collected to propagate on “trees”: Christmas-tree-like PVC structures from which the growing coral fragments hang like ornaments. One year later, 1,000 corals were transplanted, the nursery was restocked, and a second nursery, at L’Ansecoy, was added. The coral gardeners in Mustique plan to expand the nursery to 70 or 80 “trees” this year year, and possibly up to 100 trees by the spring of 2017. In 2014, coral reef restoration was chosen as a way to mitigate climate-change vulnerability for Grenada and Carriacou, and the degraded barrier reef on the windward side of Carriacou was assessed as a location with immediate need. The Carriacou Coral Nursery was set up in the Sandy Island Oyster Bed Marine Protected Area, the most biologically diverse MPA in operation in the state of Grenada. Using surveys and in mind that, although restoration can enhance conservation efforts, restoration is always a poor second to the preservation of original reefs. Meanwhile, Meanwhile, coaral gardeners are confident that their nurseries can have positive impacts. Thanks to everyone in the Grenadines Network of Marine Protected Areas for information in this report. SEPTEMBER <strong>2016</strong> CARIBBEAN COMPASS PAGE 13