Rehabilitation and Management of Coral Reefs in Southern Qui Nhon Bay (South Vietnam) (original) (raw)
Related papers
Aquatic Ecosystem Health & Management, 2009
Nha Trang Bay marine protected area was establishted in 2002 as a pilot initiative to enable adequate management of the reef communities, while providing opportunities for alternative income to the local community. A re-assessment of the data obtained during the baseline survey performed in 2002 and of an inventory performed in 2005 indicates a reasonable decline in hard coral structure in the marine protected area. The reef of Hon Mun, a core zone at the hearth of the marine protected area and an attraction for underwater tourists, showed some recovery of the coral cover. Reefs in the buffer area of Hon Mieu and Hon Mot showed, on the contrary, great declines in the coral cover and abundance. These reefs are those most affected by human derived impacts, including urban run-off, mariculture, fishing, tourism, etc. The most distant reef, at Hon Tre, although formally a core zone, is allegedly under strong fishing pressure owing to lack of surveillance enforcement. The major impact, s...
Ninh Hai waters ( south Vietnam ) : a hotspot of reef corals in the western South China Sea
2014
Reef geomorphology, species composition and community structure of reef-building corals of Ninh Hai (south central Vietnam) were investigated from 2003–2011, contributing towards development of an integrated, representative national and regional network of Marine Protected Areas. Ninh Hai hosts extensive and diverse fringing coral reefs covering more than 2,300ha, the result of favourable physico-chemical conditions of sea temperature, water clarity, and sediment levels. These well-developed fringing reefs are rare or absent in other parts of Vietnam, and hence provide a high degree of complementarity to the developing national MPA network. The fringing reefs of Ninh Hai are in relatively good condition (average live coral cover > 25%), comprised of some 310 species from 60 genera of reef-building coral, including 11 species and one genus (Scapophyllia) previously unknown from the western South China Sea. Coral community structure shows considerable differences with other reefs i...
Coral reefs are dying, we can only prevent it if we act now
2012
This paper begins with a brief overview of the status of coral reefs of Japan and around the world, followed by a review concerning present research on coral reef rehabilitation at Akajima Marine Science Laboratory in Okinawa, Japan. With respect to the latter, effort has been aimed at developing techniques for the mass culture of Acropora spp. from eggs. Colonies of Acropora tenuis that were reared from eggs and transplanted to the seabed at Akajima began spawning by approximately 20-25 cm in diameter at 4 or 5 years of age. Many fish and crustaceans have inhabited the newly transplanted coral colonies. This demonstrated the possibilities of culturing using sexual propagation as a technique to assist local coral reef rehabilitation and hence, conservation of marine biodiversity. It is humbling and somewhat depressing to compare the small scale of success relative to the wide range of degradation. However, the present method of coral reef rehabilitation has shown enough promise for ...
Farming Coral Reef Invertebrates for Reef Rehabilitation and the Aquarium Trade
Coral reefs and other coastal habitats throughout Southeast Asia are being destroyed by harmful fi shing methods (Rubec 1988). Explosives are used to kill fi sh for human consumption. Scare-lines (ropes with streamers attached to large rocks) are used to pound corals in order to drive food fi sh out of the reef into nearby nets. Likewise, kayakas fi shing involves poles used to smash corals and drive fi sh into nets. Illegal trawling over fragile bottom habitats is yet another practice that is reducing sustainable yields to food fi sheries and the aquarium trade. Divers squirt cyanide solution (sodium cyanide tablets dissolved in plastic detergent bottles) onto coral heads to capture live aquarium and food fi sh seeking refuge in the reef (Rubec 1986, 1988; Rubec et al. 2001a). Cyanide doses, exceeding several thousand parts per million, kill about 50 percent of the exposed fi sh. The others appear to recover if quickly moved to clean water. About 80 percent of the live marine aquar...
Coral reef ecology and conservation in the tropical Pacific Ocean
2022
Both local and global stressors threaten coral reefs, putting the food security, cultural continuity, and livelihoods of millions of reef-dependent people at risk. Still, scientists lack an understanding of how climate-driven heat stress interacts with local stressors such as fishing and pollution to influence reef health. Coral reef communities in the Marshall Islands and Kiribati, both low-lying atoll nations in the central Pacific, offer an opportunity to examine these interactions. The Gilbert Islands of Kiribati, which straddle the equator, experience highly variable sea surface temperatures (SSTs) inter-annually due to El Niño / Southern Oscillation, driving coral bleaching events in 2004/2005 and 2009/2010, while the Marshall Islands further north of the equator experience more stable SSTs. Both nations are home to degraded reefs near their capitol atolls, which host over half of each country’s populations. I first analyzed the benthic trajectories of coral reefs in the Gilbert Islands from 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2018, across a gradient of local human disturbance after multiple stressors, including two heat stress events and an outbreak of the corallivorous Crown-of-Thorns (CoTs) starfish, finding that locally degraded reefs were more resistant to heat stress than less trafficked reefs because the former were home to hardier taxa. Next, comparing locally disturbed and undisturbed reefs in Kiribati to those in the Marshalls demonstrated that the interactions between local and global stressors were context-dependent; the taxa that were present dictated the interactions. Then, via a meta-analysis of 1,205 sites in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, I demonstrated that a proxy often used to assess the effects of local human disturbance on reef health, the percent cover of macroalgae, does not correlate with local human disturbance. Instead, different genera of macroalgae exhibited diverse and often opposing responses to various sources of local human disturbance. Finally, I used public archives from an email listserv popular among the coral conservation community to analyze the policy narratives used by participants when discussing local threats to reefs, the actors involved in the local threat, their distal drivers, and the proposed solutions, revealing underlying assumptions about reefs and local people, which could inadvertently undermine conservation.