Successful coral growth in 2015

Bottle reefs with healthy growing acropora coral on a barren
reef crest areas

 At the end of 2015, it is very gratifying to look back at the corals we planted this year.  The reefs all over Pom Pom island are looking awesome, with healthy coral, lots of fish and amazing biodiversity.

Stylophora colonies  growing on bottle reef,

The house reef is where we concentrated lots of effort this year,  We need the reef to grow, interlock and become a wave break to stop beach erosion during the summer storms.  If the beach erodes it affects turtle nesting and we don't want that.

We know that sea level is rising and stoms are becoming stronger so repairing the damage done to the reef by blast fishing makes lots of sense.  A healthy reef is wave and storm resistant and grows dense coral which causes the waves to break before they reach the sand beach.

Our ribbon reef is growing and has lots of healthy acropora coral which is interlocking to stabilise both the coral and the skeleton bottle reefs.  Fingers crossed that the growth will be strong enough to resist the SW monsoon storms next year.

Thanks to all the great volunteers who created some fantastic reefs in 2015.

 Become a volunteer in 2016 here

Branching staghorn coral growing around a bottle reef

Conservation activites

Fish population growth     Video
Rescued sharks
Turtle volunteer surveys

Conservation projects 2016

More about our reefs

Reef restoration
Coral nursery
Step reefs on the slope
Soft coral nets. 

For more information, please check our website or e-mail info@tracc-borneo.org





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Thanks to our sponsors #GEF #sgp (the small grants programme of the GEF), as well as Ocean planet #oceanplanet and Coral care #coralcare

This work is a team effort so thanks to all our staff and volunteers.

Step Reef re-design

Step reef 2.0

Initial design

Here at TRACC we are actively working to restore our marine environment. Around our island there has been catastrophic damage caused by historic dynamite fishing. Due to this destructive fishing practice, the reef slope has been degraded to a mobile rubble slope environment with little 3D complexity. This drastically reduces the biodiversity of the reef crest and provides little shelter to larval fish. It is not all bad news though, the rubble environment often has hard corals try colonize and when successful coral growth is consistent. In 2013 we built trial step reefs, our goal was to build a sturdy 3D artificial reef, on a slope environment. This had the aim to both provide 3D complexity and a stable benthic substrate for corals to attach and grow onto. Upon our return we found that our initial test wasn’t 100% successful. Many had rolled down the reef slope due to turtles using them as scratch posts. 

Itchy turtle making a mess!

Step reef re- design

One of the first things we noticed was that, in general, the trial step reefs which were larger , were more stable. This lead to the idea of interlocking each individual block with the one both its left and right, this in effect makes every layer of the step reef one large stable block. This is achieved by leaving gaps between the individual blocks, with the plan to initially cable tie them and then cement these once the blocks are in place under the water.  Massive and encrusting corals will be put in the unset cement with the hope that they would grow to envelop the two blocks, creating a biological adhesion that will only become stronger over time.

The next area we chose to strengthen was between layers. A simple and effect method of using recycled stakes to hold each step in place was used. There by removing the possibility of shallower step reefs rolling downhill over deeper step reefs.   

Step reef from every angle

interlocking layers

When the step reef is in place we add biscuits (basically a coral plant pot) from our coral nursery.

For more about coral biscuits and nursery, click here

As you can tell from the picture below, he step reefs are strong enough to support the weight of our step reef primary engineer, Kit! Hopefully our new step reefs trials will be totally successful,. [blog posts on this topic to come]. I personally cannot wait to start deploying these.

Nice and Sturdy

For more information, please check our website or e-mail info@tracc-borneo.org

The main website is at http://tracc-borneo.org
Check out our posts on our activities
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Malaysian Interns 2015

Our 2015 Malaysian Interns are finally here!

Malaysian Universities require their students to do twelve weeks of Industrial Training as part of their degree course. This year our lucky interns are coming to us from both UMT and UMS and have backgrounds in Marine Science or Conservation Biology. They successfully beat the rush back in December and were undeterred by the challenging application process; Allen, Martinus, Nadia & Shaakirah have finally made it all the way to an exciting internship with TRACC on Pom Pom, Sabah, Malaysia.

They will learn to scuba dive and (once they get past blowing bubble rings for hours) how to get to work underwater. Cement mixing, concrete lifting and lowering, reef rebuilding and coral transferring are all part of the days work at TRACC. This is part of our major restoration work where we stop the decimated rubble reef from moving and plant healthy baby corals in stable conditions. These in turn grow, stabilize the rubble further and provide critical habitat for all the other denizens of the reef.

On top of this, they will be undertaking research rotations with our resident scientists on the long term projects TRACC has running. These include fish, coral and invertebrate identification to species (there are over 300 species of fish alone!). The coral garden identification and mapping project (the coral id book comes in 3 volumes!). Soft coral stabilization of steep, mobile, rubble substrates ("Perhaps we can use soft coral to "stitch" the reef back together so that it stops moving enough for us to replant it".). Turtle daily migration patterns (Seriously, where does George go every afternoon?).

Finally, they will be mixing with people from different places, ages, backgrounds, opinions and experiences and discussing and debating all the marine science, conservation, ecology, anthropology, sociology and politics that affect the marine environment. The critical thing that unites everyone at TRACC is a love of the ocean, a passion to preserve what we have and the dedication to restore what has been damaged.

Allen, Martinus, Nadia & Shaakirah have a unique opportunity to witness the problems and take part in the solutions for themselves before graduating as enthusiastic Malaysian Scientists.

Good Luck Guys!



For more information, please check our website or e-mail info@tracc-borneo.org

The main website is at http://tracc-borneo.org
Check out our posts on our activities
on fb tracc.borneo
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on google + tracc

or simply #tracc or #traccblog on Google, Facebook, twitter or instagram

Successful marine conservation by coral biscuit culture

A coral biscuit with new coral tissue
spreading across the cement block.

We have been diving on the ribbon reef coral nursery doing essiential maintenance. TRACC has just moved back to Pom Pom island after a one year absence and while there were no volunteers, the nursery was disturbed by the fish. The staff we retained for the SGP/GEF project were busy building step and bottle reefs on land but with no diving gear they could not do the underwater work.

The corals fragments were planted last year in wet cement to create coral biscuits. The biscuit process takes place on land, wet cement is placed in small plastic pots and finger sized pieces of coral are stuck in the cement. The pot and coral is placed underwater where the cement sets, after 24h the plastic pots are removed and the finished biscuits are placed in the nursery to grow. Unfortunately the biscuits are not heavy enough to stop them being moved by fish. The fish are attracted to the crabs and worms that hide under the biscuits, Rockmover wrasse are theworst culprits. These are really crafty fish, you can see them at work on most of the rubble areas of the island. They appear to work in pairs and take it in turns to pick up a piece of loose coral. One fish lifts the coral and moves it while the other grabs the crab or other tasty morsel which was hidden underneath. Pretty clever fish, they take it in turns so each fish gets a share of the food.

Two very similar coral species competing for space
on the same block.  The new coral tissue has
spread from the original massive coral across the block.

Anyway, the rockmover wrasse and the triggerfish move the coral biscuits in the nursery and they drop blocks on top of other corals and even turn the blocks over. Our job as volunteer divers is to sort out the mess of blocks and turn the coral biscuits back the right way. Fortunately, coral is pretty resilient, provided the coral was not buried in sand, they continue to survive even upside down. The coral doesn't get much light when upside down so growth is really slow. Our job at TRACC is to promote reef growth for marine conservation so we spent several days this week turning all the corals back over so they are the right way up.and can grow quickly.

The growth of the biscuits which remained the right way up, has been amazing and is a great example of sucessful reef regeration. If you look at the pictures you can see the coral tissue spreaing across the blocks, the corals in this post are all massive corals which are supposed to grow really slowly. (i will write another article about the branching corals) The original fragment can be seen in the middle of the block and then the coral tissue has spread across the biscuit and in some cases gone over the edges and down the sides. The coral obviousy uses the free space on the biscuit and spreads as rapidly as possible.

It has been a great experience working on marine conservation with TRACC and I would like to thank my instructor and all my gap year and volunteer buddies. It has been a blast, and i hope to come back to see my corals when they have been moved out of the nursery and onto the ribbon reefs and Step reefs.

You may also want to read about our coral planting for world ocean day or our   Coral Planting Exhibition 31 May 2015
Growth of the branching corals in the coral nursery. 
Making coral biscuits 
Making bottle reefs 
 Step reefs
Crate reefs
Shark cave reefs
Igloo reefs construction  -- Underwater assembly  -- Fishlife

More blogs about TRACC marine conservation centre

For more information, about learning to dive or volunteering to help save the ocean with TRACC in Malaysia - Turtle Snorkellers - Divers 

 
please check our website or e-mail info@tracc-borneo.org

The main website is at http://tracc-borneo.org
Check out our posts on our activities
on fb tracc.borneo
on twitter tracc_borneo
on google + tracc

or simply #tracc or #traccblog on Google, Facebook, twitter or instagram

 

Sunset music festival coral planting exhibition

Happy with his coral biscuit

Our final coral planting exhibition for spring 2015 was held on the 6^th & 7^th of June, aiming to educate people visiting the sunset music festival on the occasion of the World Ocean Day and World Environment Day. The entire science team was up at the crack of dawn to prepare for all the coral planting work to be conducted that day. Kit accompanied by his younger brother Yong Sien packed all the coral planting essentials, I meanwhile conducted a fish market survey whilst Jason and Emily collected corals of opportunity ready for the days coral planting followed by a late night information stall at the music festival.

In the previous blog post I outlined the methodology for public coral planting, today I shall expand more into the booth and what we try and explain to people. Educating the general public is a large part of conservation, particularly environmental education for the new generations about the importance of being sustainable.  

The Science Team

Turtles

Jason Talking about Turtles

Here at Kudat three kinds of turtles used to be present in abundance, they are as follows; Hawksbill, Green and Olive Ridley. However to date all populations have been severely depleted due to historical egg poaching, with Olive Ridleys turtles likely locally extinct. Numbers of Greens are protected by the activities of community projects such as KTCS but there are still many threats facing these creatures.

Ocean plastic pollution is one of the main threats facing these beautiful creatures. We at TRACC have performed autopsies on turtles and very often, as reflected in the literature, find that blockages of the intestinal tract are the primary cause of death. It appears that plastic bags in the ocean resemble jellyfish are one of the most common causes of this threat.

So what can you do?

Firstly one thing that everyone can do is simply reduce the amount of plastic they use in their everyday life.  One of the easiest and most effective ways of doing this is simply not using carrier bags. Buy yourself a lifelong shopping bag and immediately help reduce your carbon footprint. The average active use of a carrier bag is under 30 seconds and yet it can take hundreds of years for this to biodegrade. Also buying in bulk can considerably reduce plastic in packaging terms, and also save you money! Lastly, the simplest of all, don’t litter!

Another threat that faces sea turtles is egg collection. Turtles are air breathers and need to come onto land to lay eggs. They lay on average 6 times a season and leave large and very evident tracks leading to their nests. Here in Malaysia the eggs are considered a delicacy, one single nest of turtle eggs can be equivalent of an entire months wages, so its no surprise that historical nest raids have dramatically reduced turtle numbers over the years. At the time of writing it is currently illegal, but with so many beaches its impossible for the police to enforce any kind of law regarding this matter. Here at TRACC, we have collected and hatched in excess of 3000 eggs since 2013. We try and put the message across that the maximum value of turtles, is in ecotourism for the community, rather than a one off payment for an individual.  

Shark fin soup

Shark bycatch / fisheries are another issue that we are trying to educate the public about. Sharks are scientifically defined as fish, however they belong to the subclass Elasmobranch, which also contains rays, skates and sawfish. All members of the subclass Elasmobranchii, in comparison to the majority of other fish subclasses, have long life histories (that is they take a long time to mature, gestated etc). This in turn means that sharks are more prone to being unsustainably fished. Shark surveys conducted across the world all point to significant global reductions in populations of sharks, See HERE for ours.

Shark fin soup is a causes of massive increases in shark fisheries. Shark fin soup is a luxury item in Chinese culture, and Malaysia has the second largest import of shark fins in Asia. To obtain maximum profits, it is common practice for sharks de-finning to take place on the vessel and their body to be thrown overboard (sometimes still alive). By doing so much more shark fin (the most profitable part of the shark) can be brought to market.

For more information about shark conservation click HERE

Jason explaining about dynamite fishing

Another threat which we are trying to mitigate is that of blast (aka dynamite) fishing. This sadly is exactly as it sounds. Its roots lie within the occupation of the Philippines by America. Historically WW2 grenades were thrown into the water, they would then explode, killing everything in its radius and fish would simply be collected.

Sound like a pretty easy way to fish? It is! Super effective as well as very time efficient. However these bombs also cause massive coral damage, no coral means no fish, therefore the few people who bomb fish are in effect, destroying their livelihood and also the livelihood of other artisanal net fishers for short term gain. For more information on blast fishing click HERE. 

Putting the biscuit back into water
asap to reduce stress on the coral

Here are some of the days coral planting pictures.

Again i'd like to say thank you to all those who participated and a HUGE thank you to my team of scientists; Kit, Jason and Emily for continually working with a positive, can-do attitude, even when working into the night. Great work guys.

Thanks also to the Small grants programme (SGP) of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) administered by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). #thegef

Our best looking biscuit?

The future generation planting the future coral!

Mixing a thick paste of the
coral planting cement

You may also want to read about our coral planting for world ocean day or Growth of the branching corals in the coral nursery.  or Step reefs or Bottle reefs or Shark cave reefs or igloo reefs

More blogs about TRACC marine conservation centre

More info about learning to dive or volunteering to help save the ocean with TRACC in Malaysia
- Turtle Snorkellers     - Divers  

For more information, about learning to dive or volunteering to help save the ocean with TRACC in Malaysia - Turtle Snorkellers - Divers 
 
please check our website or e-mail info@tracc-borneo.org

The main website is at http://tracc-borneo.org
Check out our posts on our activities
on fb tracc.borneo
on twitter tracc_borneo
on google + tracc

or simply #tracc or #traccblog on Google, Facebook, twitter or instagram

Exceptional diving with barracuda school on Pom Pom Island

School of Barracuda at Magic Rocks,
Pom Pom Island

The School of Barracuda at Magic Rocks, were just amazing,
The diving on Pom Pom Island over the past few weeks has been exceptional, with every single dive being a stand out. The marine biodiversity is truly amazing and the variety of diving that can be done here needs a solid mention as well.
Yeah man! 
It's gotten so much better here! 
Maori Wrasse and Giant groupers are around, saw an eagle Ray yesterday as well. 

Steve thinks the Mauri wrasse are the ones that TRACC rescued from fishermen in 2013 & 2014.
 
And then the macro life is as good as it always was!

Oscar
DM with TRACC - Tropical Research And Conservation Center
— at Pom Pom Island

More info about learning to dive or volunteering to help save the ocean with TRACC in Malaysia - Turtle Snorkellers - Divers 

Search #tracc 

Coral Planting Exhibition 31 May 2015

TRACC Coral Planting Exhibition 31^st May 2015

Emily teaching the next generation
about the threats facing our oceans.

With 75% of all coral reefs on our planet considered severely degraded, reefs are an ecosystem that need lots of positive human intervention.  There are many stressors facing coral reefs including climate change, ocean acidification, increasing amounts of persistent organic pollutants, overfishing, destructive fishing practices (including blast fishing and cyanide fishing) and coastal development. All of these, at least in some respects, are caused by human activity.

Coral reefs are the rainforests of the ocean, and, like the rainforests; they are shrinking at an alarming rate. They cover less than 2% of the oceans benthic environment but ¼ of all oceanic species depend on them. They are an important and fragile ecosystem which we as a species are having a negative effect on. It is for this reason why TRACC with support from the SGP/GEF/UNDP is holding a series of coral planting days open to the general public. Our aims are simple, to have the public actively involved with conservation, and, whilst they are doing so, educate them on the fragility of the ocean and how they can help. 

Visitors learning about coral planting and reef restoration

Todays exhibition was held on the 31^st of May 2015 and was second in our series of planned events for the Tip of Borneo. The team arose early in the morning to secure a booth on the beach. With thanks to the local police force we had a supply of electricity. Our booth (shown above and below) had many informative banners on coral planting, shark fin soup, ocean pollution and blast fishing as they are the main issues around this area. Here we presented what we know to be local threats affecting local environments and discussed it with our visitors. After showing the public about some of the threats facing their local environment, all were motivated to partake in some hands on conservation. At this stage we introduced them to our coral planting techniques.

What are Corals?

Large groups getting involved with the
important work of rebuilding coral reefs

Firstly to know about coral planting you need to know what corals are. Corals are animals like you or I. However, they grow like plants and also they get their energy from the sun.  They do this by having algae live inside them. The corals act as a landlord and the algae pay rent with food. This mutually beneficial relationship between two different organisms is known in the science community as a symbiotic relationship. Both corals and algae need to be in good health to produce a healthy reef. A healthy reef provides; hunting, grazing, breeding and mating grounds for ¼ of all oceanic species. Healthy reefs mean healthy oceans; this is why at TRACC we focus on these bio-diverse hotspots. 

Jason making artificial reef,
the foundations of coral planting.

What is Coral Planting?

As corals grow like plants, it is possible to plant coral. All you need is a piece of live coral and a hard surface for it to grow on. What we do at TRACC is collect corals from the reef that have broken off in storms or through anchor damage, these corals would normally die and so we call them corals of opportunity. We embed these corals of opportunity into cement. The cement then sets underwater and you then have a coral you now plant. We then use these embedded corals to add life to our artificial reefs, creating an artificial coral reef.

How did our event run?

Coral planting is hard work, as all who have volunteered at TRACC will know. [For more information on volunteering with TRACC click HERE]. It mainly consists of diving, collecting coral fragments,  making cement structures and lifting heavy cement blocks into place! To make this easily engaging for the public we had to do a little prep work.

Over the last four weeks, the entire TRACC science team has been preparing in Kudat for these upcoming events leading to World Environment Day and  World Ocean Day.  Firstly a large, stable underwater site had to be found, here we dropped our bottle reefs in a square fashion – these will make a large stable artificial reef which, after the event, will be where the corals are permanently planted. 

(Other reefs we made in Kudat 2014/15 within the proposed Tun Mustapha Park -->Here)

Keeping the corals in water
to minimize stress and
increase survival rates

Secondly we pre-made molds. These are small concrete disks, roughly the size of a coffee mug, with holes in (you can see them in the photo above). These provide the ‘plant pots’ for our live coral. The idea is that the small disks, which we have named biscuits, act as a base for the corals. The small holes in the disks have coral fragments put inside them and they are then cemented into place ready for planting.  

On the day of the event it was an early start for all. The team was split up into two group. One who set up our information booth, along with all the essentials for coral planting. The other team was in charge of collecting corals of opportunity. It is important to collect these on the day to minimize the stress facing the corals. The more stress the corals undergo the more they are likely to bleach and die.

Mixing the cement into a thick paste,
which is best for planting the corals

Picking which coral fragment
will grow well in her biscuit

All visitors who came were given a small cup sized container in which they mixed sand, cement and water so make a thick paste.  After this they would come to the area where the corals were being stored. Our staff would talk them through the biology of corals and help them choose suitable coral fragments. The public would then plant the coral fragments in the pre-made biscuits mentioned earlier, and help return these to the ocean ready for placement in our nursery the next day.

The finished product: a coral biscuit ready for
planting back in the ocean

In total, we planted three full boxes of coral fragments, a huge achievement in a days work. I’d like to thank all who participated in the days coral planting as well as my co-workers Kit, Jason and Emily - who have been working very hard to make these large events run as smoothly as possible.  Thanks also to the SGP/GEF/UNDP for assistance with funding these events.

More about engaging the community to protect reefs.


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To know more about our coral planting techniques and our upcoming events  please like us or follow us on Facebook or google+ or read our tweets :-)


The Volunteers blog  for accounts of our conservation efforts, reef construction and surveys.


More info about learning to dive or volunteering to help save the ocean with TRACC in Malaysia.

Coral planting on step reefs to repair sloping rubble reefs

The step reefs with coral biscuits to repair sloping coral reefs
were built by the Kalapuan community
as part of the TRACC SGP/GEF project

The Tracc SGP/GEF coral planting project has been busy building step reefs to hold the biscuits and repair sloping rubble reefs.  Pom Pom Island and many of the reefs in the Semporna district have a very steep slope of rubble.  The reef crest was blasted by bomb fishers in the past and now all that is left is a slope of coral fragments.  These are unstable and move gradually down the slope.  Most larval corals which settle are abraded off or smothered by the sand as the rubble rolls down the slope.


The community of Kalapuan island has been building our complex step reefs during 2014.  Made of cement mortar with two rows of bottles, the back row of bottles is taller than the front.  The undersurface during manufacture or the top surface after positioning has indentations which correpond exactly with the shape and size of our coral biscuits in the nursery.

The step reefs with coral biscuits have a variety of coral species
to increase diversity of the repaired coral reefs.

To date (May 2015), the community has built slightly over 250 of the steps which will be sufficint to make many cluster or auditorium reefs and will provide long term protection for nearly 2000 coral biscuits from our coral nursery.

Millipora coral spreading from the
coral biscuit across the step reef.

Pocillopora coral growing from a fragment
in a biscuit into a healthy coral
supported by a step reef

Porites coral has completely overgrown
the original biscuit

Porites coral has completely
covered the original biscuit

Creating igloo reefs - on land

under construction

Igloo reefs to attract shoals of fish

The team of Malaysians and international volunteers have been having fun over the past few weeks making igloo reefs for our SGP/GEF project near the Tip of Borneo (Simpang Mengayu). These are bottle reefs attached together by plastic pipe bent into an arch shape and then assembled into an igloo shape. The plastic pipe has a large number of holes drilled in it to make a suitable attachment point for coral fragments which will be fixed by cable ties. These igloo reefs are intended to act as very open shelters to schools of fish.

The igloos were assembled and labeled on land and then the various parts were taken apart to make for easy transport in the boat and underwater.

GEF/SGP with TRACC - Tropical Research And Conservation Center
— at Pom Pom Island

More info about learning to dive or volunteering to help save the ocean with TRACC in Malaysia - Turtle Snorkellers - Divers 

finished igloo with the retaining rings positioned
and drilled ready for cbl tie attchment underwater