VABBINFARU, Maldives (4 June 2004) -- Scientists in the Maldives watched spellbound under the full moon as reproducing corals ejected pink-orange eggs and bundles of sperm — proof the islands' endangered reefs are on the road to regeneration. "That was the first time in the history of the Maldives that we had discovered coral spawning," said marine biologist Azeez Hakeem, who was among the watchers one special evening last year. "It went into our hearts." Six years after a spike in water temperatures bleached and killed two-thirds of the Maldives' precious coral reefs, nature is staging a comeback — with a helping hand from man. Researchers battling to save the reefs are using cone-shaped steel frames as nurseries for the corals, passing a small electric current through the metal to form a layer of limestone on which the brightly coloured creatures can grow. Nurturing the recovery of the corals is more than an economic imperative for the Maldives, which relies heavily on tourists lured by its reefs, white-sand beaches and azure-blue waters: without the protective barrier of the reefs, coastal erosion would ravage the 1,200 islands lying low in the Indian Ocean. "If the reef is gone, we are gone. It's as simple as that," said Azeez. That's why a spike in water temperatures in 1998 came as such a shock. | | Until then, Maldivians never had to give much thought to their thriving reefs that attract scuba divers from all over the world. For 300 years they even built their homes out of coral. Then global warming and the El Nino ocean current rammed home the fragility of the islands' existence. The El Nino is caused by a change in the ocean-atmosphere system in the eastern Pacific that can trigger major weather shifts around the world. The 1998 El Nino abruptly raised temperatures in the seas around the Maldives' atolls by as much as five degrees Celsius. About 70 per cent of the corals died, leaving them with a bleached look. "Before 1998 we never thought that this reef could die. We had always taken for granted that these animals would be there, that this reef would be there forever," Azeez said. "El Nino gave us a wake-up call that these things are not going to be there forever." The electrified steel cones that Azeez's team is using to help regenerate the reefs are submerged in about 20 ft of water at Vabbinfaru in the northern Maldives. Some baby corals latch naturally onto the structures, which are about 20 ft long by 12 ft high. Others are attached by scientists and, once they have grown, are transplanted to colonise other areas of the reef. "We can bring corals in and use it as a gene bank," said Dave Campion, a young British marine biologist working on the project. SOURCE - Reuters |
