 | 
Total Reef Domes Deployed by the 17th April 2006 = 2,005!
Brief introduction to the Project!
The Reef Dome project was first conceived on the 1st April 2005 when 2 friends, Chris Dearne (British) and John Heitz (American) were sitting at the Cambridge Farm Hotel Bar drinking San Miguel Beer and complaining about the state of the local coral reefs and lack of protection of the reefs! It was decided that many people and organizations who are employed to protect and help save the delicate Marine Eco-System were all talk and no action! A few more beers later it was decided that if anything was going to be done to restore and improve the local marine environment for future generations to see, the private sector, meaning Chris and John would have to be the ones to take the lead in restoration and see if their assessment about the other people was correct!
Over the next couple of weeks the initial domes were designed and constructed at Cambridge Farm Hotel and on the 17th April 2005 the first domes were deployed in the waters fronting Maharlika Beach Resort!
Now, one year into the project and having deployed 2005 domes in and around the waters of Sarangani Bay Area the all talk and no action principle seems unfortunately to be totally correct! This situation can only be called a very sad state of affairs indeed!
Recognition of the Project by General Santos City Council!
On the 24th November 2005, after a short presentation of the project by Chris Dearne, the SANGGUNIANG PANLUNGSOD of General Santos City issued Resolution No 456 Series of 2005 commending this Reef Enhancement Project Aimed to Rehabilitate the Marine Environment of Sarangani Bay!
We thank them whole heartedly for their kind moral support!
Dome Locations!
During the project we have set 2,005 domes at the following 14 locations:
1) Maharlika Beach 1 160
2) Tropicana Beach 209
3) Rajah Beach 97
4) Dupalco Beach 135
5) Family Beach 76
6) London Beach 61
7) Lion Beach 186
8) Takut Tabo 396
9) South Point Divers, Tinoto 252
10) Malbang Reef Maasim 20
11) Tuka Reef-Kiamba 06
12) Maharlika Beach 2 251
13) Tinoto Rocky Beach 141
14) Petron Pier 15
Total = 2,005 Domes!
In order to construct this quantity of domes, the following materials have been used to date!
1) Holcim Cement: 42 Tons!
2) 7mm Steel Bars 1,010 Pieces!
3) Sand 230 Cu Yards!
4) Split Bamboo 23 Bundles of 10 Pieces!
5) Formwork Oil 22 Gallons!
6) Tie Wire 30 Kg’s!
As I have said in previous reports, all diving, transport of domes to site, documentation etc has been voluntary with no cost to the project!
Goals for 2006 / 7!
Because of the very successful deployment of domes in the first 12 months of the project, 2005 domes in all, we are hoping to set another 2,000+ by the 17th April 2007 making a total of 4,000+ domes deployed in and around Sarangani Bay by that date! Once this number has been deployed it should give us a good idea how many more domes if any will be required to complete our project in and around Sarangani Bay!
Our main goal is to provide improvements to the area of General Santos and Tinoto, for areas further away like Maasim, Glan, Maitum and Kiamba etc we hope that such areas will take action themselves to restore their own marine areas as required! BFAR are showing interest in working in such areas! I really hope that they do it!
Coral Transplants!
Many Hard Branching and Table Type Corals have been used to add character to the domes and extensions by plugging coral tips into pre drilled holes! Many of these tips have now fused into the holes and are irremovable from the recipient domes!
Clusters of Stag Horn Coral have been moved from the areas where main coral formations are present and transplanted into new locations where corals are lacking! This type of coral appears to be very hardy and does not seem to mind being moved; the success rate of this type or transplant is very encouraging!
Small Table Corals can always be found broken off of their root stem by fishing nets or large fish and dumped back on the sea bed! These can simply be moved to and tied onto the domes where they seem thrive!
Soft Hand Corals need only be placed in the vicinity of a dome and they will move onto the stable platform which is the dome. Many other types of Soft Corals and Sponges are relocated to fill the gaps in between the domes in order to make the new reef more natural!
Most of the required transplant materials have already been broken or uprooted either by nature or mostly by man with the exception of the Stag Horn Plugs! It has been noticed that when a tip is broken off the Stag Horn then like a tree, several new growing tips grow from the broken stem of the mother coral!
Lion Beach will need a big transplanting effort as there is a very minimal amount of natural coral in the area! This is now being done by transplanting corals taken from Maharlika Beach, rushing them by road and transplanting them at Lion Beach!
Natural Coral Growth on Domes!
According to the experts and Text Books, hard corals take many years to grow! To date there is much natural growth on the domes in all locations! Many varieties of soft coral colonize the domes along with barnacles and other types of permanent shelled organisms! Colored patches are the bases for many species of hard corals, and as we were led to believe by the experts, it would take many years for hard corals to show themselves! We were very surprised when reality in this area it only took less than 9 months or so for these hard corals to start to show their true form!
Tunicates, Bryozoans, Hydroids and many other forms of life are easily seen both on the inside and outside surfaces of the domes!
Maybe it is the area of the world, Sarangani Bay which has not really been checked out by the scientific community including the Mindanao State University which is based here but the reproduction of corals in the area seems much faster than usually projected! It would be interesting one day when the Mindanao State University gets bored by studying Sea Grass and instead starts to study Coral Growth Rates! This will be very easy as there are always many virgin domes to monitor from day one!
Fish Habitat!
The Habitat created by both the domes and the coral transplants have been very spectacular with many domes being filled with juvenile fish and other creatures! Even the transplanted table corals have their usual compliment of small fish and cruscations living within the relative safety of the inner matrix! It has been noticed that on occasions, within the first 24 hours of deployment, domes have been covered with fish eggs! Many domes have resident Lion Fish which use the domes as traps for smaller pray fish!
Dangers to the Success of the Project!
Probably the biggest danger to the success of not only this project but any other attempt at coral reef restoration is the use of any form of fishing with the use of nets within the areas where the domes are deployed or any other area of coral reef! Already, on many occasions new corals and coral transplants have been ripped up and destroyed by these people who fish with nets! Because the domes are creating new habitats for fish and other marine creatures these fishermen move in quickly in order to harvest this new bounty not caring at all that their catch consists of mostly juvenile fish!
There are simple to understand laws in place which prohibit fishing nets with mesh smaller than 3cm knot to knot and even laws which state that fishing which causes damage to corals is totally illegal so this problem should and could easily be stopped!
After the immense amount of devastation brought upon the coral reefs by both Mother Nature and of course by the most intelligent creature on the face of the earth, Man, it is now time that this and all other forms of indiscriminate, destructive and stupid fishing methods are totally stopped! This can easily be achieved if there is a serious commitment from the powers that be and is well proven fact in many areas that coral reefs can be restored with a little effort and policing from both Local Government and at Community Level! A great example of this is on the off shore pinnacle near Malapatan! From a well abused reef, this is now well covered with corals and fish once more!
T’ Shirts!
In order to help raising funds for the project very good quality Reef Awareness T’ Shirt’s are still being produced with a Mushroom Dome as the main feature. These shirts are still available at Cambridge Farm Hotel for Php 450.00 each. The cost of the shirt is deducted and the profits help to purchase more construction materials for the domes!
Incorporated New Ideas!
Since the project started we have made many changes as to the construction design of the domes and the general working of the project!
1) The first domes were set in the water as they were cast, soon we realized that if we were to drill small holes in the tops of the domes this would allow us to attach transplants with relative ease!
2) From wasting off excess concrete by making extensions to break up the uniform shape of the dome it was decided that this should be a standard requirement on each dome! These extensions are also drilled to allow for transplants!
3) The Cambridge Dome design was scrapped as this type of dome was not cast but plastered over a form and was too time consuming to be of real value!
4) Deploying the domes at very low tide saved diver time by allowing the surface crew to roll the domes in the maximum distance from shore before divers were necessary to deploy them!
5) Approximately 4 inches diameter by 2 inches deep depressions were set into the top surfaces of the domes and extensions to allow larger pieces of broken corals to be transplanted!
6) A bigger extension was constructed incorporating both drilled holes and the transplant depression. The idea of this is that when corals start to grow, the complete extension can be transferred to the sea bed where it will become a Mini outcrop which will help to fill in the spaces in between the domes!
7) In order to save costs on steel bars for reinforcement of the domes, where possible, split bamboo has been used saving around 50 % on the cost of reinforcement materiel per dome
8) At the beginning of the project, we only set the domes as individual reef modules on the sea bed but now we make dome stacks up to 5 high to make the sea bed more natural by varying shape and size of the artificial reefs!
Disappointments!
Having now worked this project for one year, we were hoping that some person or persons who are trained or are training in the Marine Biological Field would have shown some interest in carrying out some form of monitoring or research or even coming to see the project first hand especially with this kind of project being so new a concept for Reef Restoration! To date, the CENRO divers are interested and help when they can but no other organization has shown any interest at all! To tell the truth, most organizations SCUBA Equipment within the City is by now probably useless due to total lack of use and servicing by the people who are supposed to use it! Even these people who should dive would probably have to undergo a retraining program as they also, like their equipment, after so long out of the water have most likely forgotten the basics of diving!
Even the Mindanao State University who train such experts as Marine Biologists is still too busy conducting Sea Grass Research and their professors never dive so who is to set the example to the students!
Summary!
The overall success of the project so far I think speaks for itself! Fish and other Marine Creatures now inhabit areas of Sarangani Bay where there have either been none for a long time or have never before been seen in many areas!
We really hope now that protection can be placed on these few small areas that we are busy restoring in order not to make our efforts a waste of time!
We are in no position to install such protection, only Government can do that so we truly hope that it will happen in the very near future!
I still really hope that in the future the city experts on the Marine Environment who accommodate themselves in city provided air-conditioned offices will one day be made to earn their salary and actually go to the field and check the status of the underwater environment for themselves and make correct reports instead of the bogus and meaningless data which they pass as status reports as to the well being of the local marine eco-system because they simply do not know the true state of the reefs!
I must apologize for my negative thoughts as to the competence of many such people but from personal experience I have found that many organizations involve themselves with planning, meetings, preparing budgets and then always complain that they are under staffed, lacking equipment and transport and under funded to do the job which they are supposed to do! This is a sad situation and can only be of detriment to the city! Let’s hope that sometime in the near future that these people will have what they need to do the jobs that they are paid to do for the benefit of our future generations!
Special thanks to the following sponsors!
Many people from Private Companies, Government Organizations, NGO’s and Concerned Individuals have contributed their Financial Assistance, Labor, Equipment, Scuba Expertise or Moral Support in making the project as successful as it is! I must thank them all for their interest and hope fore their continuing interest throughout the rest of the project! Some of these contributors are:-
Cambridge Dive Center & Divers, Aqua Trade Fishing, Pescador Fishing, The Tuna Jaycees of Gen San, Rotary Club of Metro Dadiangas, Rotary Club of General Santos City, SPW Fishing (USA), The Gen San Doctors Hospital, Diagans Hospital, AMMD Marketing, Raul Campos, South Point Divers, Aaron Lisay, Ray Sabino, The General Santos City Council, Petron, CENRO and many Other Private Individuals,
For this project to continue to be successful, all I wish for is the protection of the reefs by the Local Governments and the continuing sponsorship and assistance from interested citizens companies and organizations! I truly hope that these wishes can come true to ensure we always have coral reefs for our future generations to see and enjoy!
| |
