Coral reefs produce much of the food for coastal people all around the tropics. Unfortunately other human activities have damaged the reefs. In SE Asia the impacts of blast fishing have been severe. Around the world, coral reefs have drastically declined due to coastal development, increased water temperatures and storm frequency, global climate change, disease, [...]
TRACC and members of JCI Luyang went on a coral planting trip in Kota Kinabalu Bay. A disaster trip, we all learnt firsthand the pollution problems from plastic bags. We set off over a beautiful calm sea and after 20min of driving the boat motor just stops. A plastic bag has wrapped itself around the [...]
Coral planting using the non toxic cement mixture we use is very successful. However, we felt it could be improved by speeding up the process. Hazel and Manuel set up a series of experiments to see if we could keep the random rough looking blocks and yet make the planting process faster. A number of [...]
Coralimorphs are very aggressive soft corals, they spread quickly over the available substrate. They frequently out compete other reef organisms by simply growing over the top of them. On the reef, it is common to find corralimorph colonies that are completely dome shaped, they grew over and killed the original brain coral. This post [...]
The TRACC team of Volunteer divers went to Mabul to find reefs suitable for coral planting. Mabul is a mess above water with huge piles of decomposing litter on the shoreline and in every possible corner. Underwater the story was different – the reefs are overcrowded with divers but the coral is starting to regrow.
Two staff from IBM came to the Green connection to assist with marketing efforts. During their visit they went out to Mantanai to assist with the coral planting project. All planting was done on the beach in our blue trays. The finished blocks with the planted corals were placed on the reef by snorkelling.
The Tropical Research and Conservation Centre was set up as a Not for Profit Organisation in 1999. Since then TRACC has raised funds and conducted research of coral reefs and coastal environments of Borneo. TRACC partnered with Greenforce for 6 years with a volunteer programme in the Banggi islands off North Sabah. The project led [...]
While the coral planting techniques we use are very successful from the coral growth point of view, we were unhappy that after 5 years of growth the original coral blocks can still be seen. The revised technique of planting coral on land into pre prepared blocks has the advantage that the blocks look completely natural. [...]
TRACC was host to 2 French students who worked for their university research project on soft coral planting techniques. During the course of their studies the students replanted a large area of rubble with corralimporphs of many species as well as sea fans and sponges. Plastic straws were used as [...]
We are not as good as mother Nature at creating coral reefs but there is some sophisticated bio-engineering involved.