'Protect Sri Lanka's coral reefs'

by Rosanne Koelmeyer Anderson
 

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Biological wonders of the sea, rich biodiversity among the largest and oldest living communities of plants and animals on earth having evolved between 200 and 450 million years ago: the coral reef condition in Sri Lanka has shown a progressive decline within the last three decades.

In 1998 following the bleaching event induced by the El Nino as well the tsunami that hit Sri Lanka in 2004 there was accelerated decline of the reefs and recovery after 1998 has been slow.

A combination of heavy resource exploitation, use of destructive fishing methods and lack of management too continues to degrade the reefs in Sri Lanka Arjan Rajasuriya, Research Officer in charge of the Coral Reef Research Programme NARA said in an interview with Sunday Observer in the wake of many concerns regarding the status of Sri Lanka's coral reefs and the round-the-clock monitoring of the seas.

To the energetic research officer his life seemed centered around the wonders of the sea, its beauty, snorkelling and diving in so much that even on the tragic day when the tsunami hit our shores he was snorkelling with a friend at the Wellawatte beach and witnessed the receding of the sea and all that came to past.

In 1998 the ocean current known as El Nino, combined with global warming which brought unprecedented high sea temperatures washing through the world's oceans. As a result more than three quarters of the shallow coral reefs in the Indian Ocean and parts of the Pacific died.

Speaking of Sri Lanka's status of its coral reefs he said "Reef recovery after the 1998 bleaching event has been slow except in some patch reefs in the Bar Reef Marine Sanctuary where Acropora cytherea and Pocillopora damicornis have shown rapid growth.

The tsunami damage to coral reefs was variable; the major impact was seen both in the south and in the east, with extreme damage at two locations in the east coast. Hard coral cover has declined in a number of reef sites affected by the tsunami while there was no damage to the corals in the Bar Reef Marine Sanctuary and the Pigeon Islands National Park.

The abundance of butterfly fish showed an increase where there was higher live hard coral cover. The highest abundance was at Pigeon Island followed by Coral Island and Dutch Bay where there were large numbers of juveniles of which the majority belonged to the Corallivorous group," he reiterated.

"A combination of heavy resource exploitation, use of destructive fishing methods and lack of management continues to degrade reefs in Sri Lanka. There have been sporadic attempts to manage reefs and resource exploitation, however, there has been little success due to lack of continuity in management efforts and inadequate resources to implement regulations.

Destructive fishing and uncontrolled resource harvesting has increased rapidly; even within marine protected areas while pollution has caused the biggest danger to the coral reefs with people even throwing bottles and other garbage into the sea".

"Most reef habitats have remained degraded and heavily exploited even prior to the tsunami in December 2004 and the tsunami caused further damage to many coral reefs. Storms and branching corals, sediment and chronic impacts due to coastal activities and coral bleaching have all contributed to coral reef degradation".

"Furthermore, everywhere there is destructive fishing, the biggest menace; glass bottom rides causes a lot of damage to the coral reef as well as human life. Glass bottom boats were reduced from 40 to 5 in Hikkaduwa when the tsunami hit but again it is in operation.

In October 2007 a tourist from the Czech Republic was seriously injured while snorkelling with her husband when a glass bottom boat hit her causing a head injury. The government must provide the where- with -all to the authorities to check exploitation or it will be an exercise only confined to the law books as well as stall the development of tourism too", he expressed.

"The necessity for the government to provide the where-with-all to do the checks is vital in order to avoid jeopardizing the Diving Stations from which boats are sometimes hired by the Police and Fisheries Inspectors to carry out checks for the purpose of monitoring the type of fishing gear used or in order to check if corals are being damaged in the process of catching fish," Mr. Rajasuriya explained.

"No place in the world has pristine reefs after all and what is close to pristine is not found in Sri Lanka The future of coral reefs in Sri Lanka remains uncertain especially due to lack of correct management and the increasing use of destructive fishing methods and impacts from land use.

"Sri Lanka does not lack laws to protect reefs. Ranging from the National Environment Act to more specific ones like the Coastal Conservation Act and the Marine Pollution Prevention Act, Sri Lanka's legislation appears on the surface to answer all the problems. However, although there are adequate laws and regulations, there is inadequate capacity to implement them.

The absence of alternative employment for those who are engaged in activities that damage coral reefs has also contributed considerably to aggravating the issue. However, lack of alternative employment should not be used as an excuse to delay implementation of existing regulations as the need of the hour is to protect Sri Lanka's coral reefs" he expressed.

The National Aquatic Resources Research and Development Agency (NARA) is the principal National Institute charged with the responsibility of carrying out and coordinating research, development and management activities on the subject of Aquatic Resources in Sri Lanka.

NARA's main research and development programmes cover environmental assessment and management in aquaculture development, verification of culture technologies for shrimps, prawns, mollusc, brackish water fish.

Programs on disease management, effluent treatment in farming systems, breeding of endemic ornamental fish species, crab fattening and reservoir fisheries management are also conducted by NARA while several community based projects are being carried out to transfer the technologies developed to the industry.

Regular training programmes are available on disease management in ornamental fish farming, fish nutrition, as well as fresh water prawn culture and future programs for fish breeding, brackish water fish culture and brackish water shrimp culture.

Training programs for farmers in ornamental fish farming, ornamental fish disease prevention and control, as well as fish nutrition and fresh water prawn farming are also conducted by NARA.

In addition, NARA is also well-equipped with an Ocean Observation Centre which operates twenty four hours and provides all the data when a warning goes out at regional and international level and can read tsunami warnings as well.