Throwing a Line to the Coral Reefs

Amy and I recently took part in a wonderful research project to facilitate coral growth in the Maldives.  

While much has been said in the press about the global impact of this year’s El Nino weather, little is said on its impact on the coral reefs.  In the El Nino year of 1998 nearly 90% of the coral in the Maldives was either damaged or killed due to the sustained increased in the local water temperature.  

Gili Lankanfushi is the first place in Maldives that has implement a reef rehabilitation project utilizing living coral fragments implanted into a rope. This project is rightly called The Coral Lines Project. Once implanted with coral the ropes are put into an underwater “nursery” for up to 3 years and then are transplanted back to the reef on bare areas that once contained coral. Being that I am an avid water lover and spent my fare share of time over a reef, we thought this would be a great opportunity to give back.

A short video of our Coral Lines Project experience 

While this sounds like a really complex science experience Josie, the on-site marine biologist, walked us rookies through the entire process.  We started with snorkeling over the nursery. Despite the cloudy water and rain clouds, this gave us a better understanding of the entire process.  From there Josie took a piece of coral that had broken from the main reef to use as our fragments to implant.  

We then cut the coral into 56 small pieces and then proceeded to insert these in the rope.  Once the fragments were in the rope we had to measure all the pieces. These pieces will be measured every 3 months to track their growth.  These quarterly observations can be found on the project's website where you can watch the coral grow.  The final step in the process is to “plant” these in the nursery and hope for the best.

We look forward to watching our coral grow and hope that we can visit the reef that we helped grow. Click here to join us in watching our coral grow in the nursery.  If you would like to donate a coral line (or 5) you can visit the Coral Lines Project's website.

Until then,

Rhs & Amy