WINNER -- for the Energy Globe World Award 2016

TRACC.org working on coral reef conservation in Semporna, Sabah, Malaysia has been chosen as WINNER in the Water category for 2016.  We were nominated in 2016 as one of the three finalists in the category water for the Energy Globe World Award 2016.  Thanks to the judges who had the difficult task of chosing between coral reefs and water shortages in Africa.

The Energy Globe Award is an important award for sustainability worldwide.

This year, EGA have received about 2000 applications from 180 countries. Out of the many great projects and inventions, the international jury has selected OUR project “ Restoring coral reefs to survive climate change ” as one of the 16 most outstanding projects worldwide. Our nomination in the final 3 projects for the category water was announced officially on 24th October on Energy Globe World Award 2016 website.

The award ceremony will be part of the UN Climate Change Conference on 10th November in Marrakech, Morocco.

THANKS TO ALL OUR STAFF & VOLUNTEERS  AND COMMUNITIES, WE MUST BE DOING SOMETHING RIGHT BUT WE COULDN’T HAVE DONE THIS WITHOUT YOUR HELP.

Saving coral reefs is what we do – with your help –  so please pat yourselves on the back if you have helped TRACC and send a great big thank you :-) to all our supporters.

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If you want to visit and volunteer to help with any marine conservation activity, please check our website http://tracc.org or email info@tracc-borneo.org

For updates on TRACC activities, Tumblr   Google+   Facebook   Instagram   youtube,  Twitter

If visits to Tracc are not possible then like us and share our projects on Social media.

Donations to community projects, or support / sponsor an Intern or Marine science student are always welcome.

Turtles galore

Turtle nesting at TRACC is commonplace,  with a nest almost every week through the year, there is a great spectacle of National Geographic proportions happening all the time. This year 2016, we have had nesting turtles since January and yesterday (22-09-2016) in a stroke of good fortune, we had two females emerge to nest within a few metres and a few minutes of each other.

Moving 100+kg across the sand on your belly is hard work.

  Standing within metres of a nesting female as she scrabbles through the bushes puts wild life and wild places into perspective.  For me, its amazing that all TRACC staff and volunteers can get up close to real endangered species that have been on the planet for millions of years.  These are real experiences of life on the planet - upclose and personal, rather than images carried by the internet to millions of people.


A short distance down the beach from the TRACC camp and it is easy to imagine that Sir David Attenborough is also on the beach - talking to the cameras that will carry the images of prehistoric reptiles across the world.

Chambering involves digging with the back flippers.

Volunteers and students who are seeing these amazing creatures for the first few times are always suitably impressed but the excitement for the staff varies in intensity depending on how much sand the turtle throws.  It is always a balance, shower at the end of a diving  day, or wait to shower after being covered in sand and turtle mucus.  There is still a great sense of achievement as the new turtle nest is dug in the hatchery where the eggs will be safe until the hatchlings are released to run down the sand to the sea.

Collecting the eggs into the bucket

We are so lucky to have these opportunities,  a few years ago getting to Pom Pom Island and turtle nesting beaches was a logistical nightmare.  Now transport and access is easy, our role is to balance the needs of the turtles so that tourism and development actually benefits these wonderful reptiles.

A job well done, eggs safely into the hatchery. 

 More

Turtle Hatching on Pom Pom | TRACC Borneo Volunteers

 

 

Turtle Nesting on Pom Pom Island | TRACC Borneo Volunteers

 

A typical day as a turtle volunteer | TRACC Borneo Volunteers

 

 

 

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If you want to help with any marine conservation activity please check out our website tracc.org or e-mail iinfo@tracc-borneo.org

For updates check out our facebook, twitter or Google +

Turtle, shark or Reef conservation would not be possible without the generous financial support. We thank GEF/SPG for Malaysia who are helping our community activities, and coralreefcare.com who generously provide materials to build more reefs.   

If visits to Tracc are not possible then please help with financial support and follow our projects on facebook

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

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