Last Updated on Sunday, 14 November 2010 06:30
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Sunday, November 14th, 2010
Holiday Maldives
However extremely severe stress will lead to fatality, and that there was a 90 per cent mortality after 1998.
Regardless of whether the coral is bleached or killed, natural processes will recover the coral that El Nino damaged, although the process is slow.
In the past four years, the reefs around the Maldives have had a huge recovery, contrary to doom and gloom predictions that came out when the mass bleaching first took place.
Also that he is optimistic because the natural bargain holidays to maldives capacity of reefs to recover in the past decade has been good in some places, particularly in the southern atolls.
Proactive v Reactive
While Zahir acknowledges the educational and scientific uses of artificial coral growth, he is more interested in focusing on measures that prevent future damage, and allowing Mother Nature to address the re-growth.
There are concerns such as sewage reclamationhuman-induced threats like pollution, coastal reclamationThose are much more damagingIt destroys the physical structure of the reef,.
maldives dive fish scuba snorkelling
Stevens also acknowledges the importance of looking at the underlying problem of reef destruction, but he concludes that the destruction in the Maldives was a onetime event, not part of a chronic problem.
We have 100 resorts or so with reefs that can recover and are recovering, but if you can speed up the process that would be fantastic, says Stevens.
Scientists do not know how to predict when the next El Nino will come, but Stevens says that you can loosely conclude that one occurs once every three to eight years.
Furthermore their severity is also uncertain; some can have triggerfish virtually no affect, while some can have far-reaching consequences.
The last waves of El Nino have had no impact on the Maldives, says Stevens.
It is also unclear how much of a concrete impact coral propagation will have in the Maldives.
Minister of Fisheries and Agriculture Dr Ibrahim Didi says that his ministry is interested in supporting coral propagation.
He says that a week ago, a bill was submitted to the committee on fisheries from the marine biology research center proposing to begin coral propagation at an uninhabited island.
Didi says he thinks there is a high chance that the proposal will be approved by next week and that the ministry is always interested in new projects. He says that the extent of the ministrys support for coral propagation will depend on demand.
At this point, the ministry does not know if propagation is economically or environmentally feasible. It is a pilot project, he says.
Although there is no widely held view on how to protect coral reefs, there is agreement across the board over the importance of public awareness and support in the process.
Zahir says that snorkeling for everyone, not just tourists, is an important way of gaining interest in coral care.
More people should go snorkeling and go see how nice the coral are, he says. Even the politicians who talk about it dont know. They should go as well.
In another step towards becoming environment-friendly, the Maldivian government unveiled plans yesterday to designate three whale shark habitats in the Maldives as protected areas.
The allocated protected areas include Baa atoll Hanifaru, Baa atoll Angafaru and Alif Dhaal atoll Maamigili as protected areas to commemorate World Environment Day and World Ocean Day on the 5 and 8 June respectively.
We welcome the whale shark sanctuaries, said Ali Rilwan, executive director of environment NGO Bluepeace today. We dont need paper parks, we need monitoring and more research in these areas.
In March, the ministry of fisheries and agriculture extended the moratorium on reef shark fishing to cover the whole of the Maldives as part of a move towards a total ban on both reef and oceanic shark hunting.
The main objective of the project was to protect the areas mega fauna, namely whale sharks and manta rays.
Divided into various zones, in which different activities will be permitted. While diving and snorkeling would still be allowed, a set of guidelines would be provided to instruct on how to deal with encounters with whale sharks.
Further, boats including Liveaboards and dive boats will be subject to speed limits in certain areas.
Local and Global Reaction
The reaction of local residents was very positive. They actively wanted this to happen and this wont impact any of their activities so they have nothing to lose from this, Thats the findings of the consultation.
The decision would have a global significance and the areas were among the few in the world where whale sharks could be spotted.
Studying the Whale Shark
Malediven 5691 Maldivian Government Moves to Protect its Whale Sharks and Allocates Protect Areas
(whale shark, Maldives)
The polka-dotted whale shark is the largest fish on the planet, but very little is known about their existence, according to the Maldives Whale Shark Research Programs website.
While it is known they swim potentially vast distances across the ocean, eating only plankton, tiny fish and squid, how long they live or where they reproduce remains a mystery.
It was crucial to establish a set of guidelines to counter the impact that the growth of tourism would have on whale sharks in future years. At present, it is estimated that whale shark excursions generate US$10 million annually.
According to researchers there have been 115 whale sharks spotted around the Maldives, although the real number was probably higher.
Some of these areas are important feeding grounds, And out of all of them, there are only two females, so the animals are only spending part of their lives here.
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