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FreeDiving | Scuba | Technical Diving | Special Features
Reef Ball Foundation Announces Largest Coral Transplant
Friday Oct 10, 2003 @ 13:10
Submitted by
The Reef Ball Foundation in conjunction with the Stanford Development
Group will be launching the world’s largest coral transplant effort taking
place off the Caribbean island of Antigua.
Confirmed at DEMA today, the collaboration, known as “The Coral
Propagation Project”, will begin its physical work on Saturday, October
11th when volunteers from Antigua and other Caribbean islands, start the
process of taking samples of the endangered species of Acropora corals
from all over the island and transplanting them into new Reef Ball
homes.
Approximately 2,000 Reef Balls will be installed around Maiden Island;
a tiny island perched just north of Antigua. This project will include the
largest ever coral propagation and transplant program. It will create over
10,000 new colonies of the threatened Staghorn and Elkhorn coral. The Reef
Balls will serve many purposes including protecting sea grasses from
boating scars, stabilization of the island’s beaches to create better
conditions (less siltation) for corals and other marine life, and as
substrate to create a richly diverse coral reef. Antigua’s Optimist Club
volunteers will be guided and instructed by a team of experts including
Oceanographer Alfredo Torruella, Ph.D of the Caribbean Oceanography Group
and Dr. Lee Harris of the Florida Institute of Technology. Harold Hudson
(A.K.A. “the reef doctor”) has assisted the Foundation in providing
specialized biological designs for the Reef Balls to be used in the
project. In total, the project will use 7 different sizes of Reef Balls of
which there are 9 different styles and 5 different anchoring solutions.
Not only is this the most extensive use of all Reef Ball technologies, but
it will also be completed in record time. Typically a project of this size
will could take several years to complete due to complex oceanography,
engineering, permitting, construction and deployment time.
The Coral Propagation Project, which started in mid-September, will be
completed by the end of this year without any slippage in quality. The
project has been made possible by the efforts of Mr. Alan Stanford, who
has gone to great lengths to create Marine Protected Areas in Antigua and
throughout the Caribbean. Mr. Stanford would like to see knowledge and
techniques shared with local Caribbean talents so that Western Caribbean
residents can continue projects like this in the region.
The Reef Ball Foundation is an international environmental non-profit
group. Its mission is to help restore our world’s ocean ecosystems and to
emphasize and protect our natural reef systems through preservation,
technology, innovative public education opportunities, and community
involvement. For more information, you can visit their website at http://www.reefball.org/.
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