Discover the latest updates on the coral restoration project

Coral Restoration with Coralive

The end of Julie Pezin ’s coral restoration project on Fregate Island did not mark the end of the project but a new start. As for every project run on Fregate Island, we needed to find a way to make the findings of Julie’s study useful for the island conservation so we moved to the next step.?

While investigating the best way forward, we ran into some challenges – one of which was the unpredicted high tide that washed away the electric box responsible of feeding electricity to the structures. This created the opportunity for our team to observe if the coral recruits would now get attracted to the previously electrified tables. We noticed that since the electricity stopped flowing, baby corals started appearing on tables that previously did not have any. We can now assume that coral larvae are not attracted by the electricity.

Together with Coralive ?we decided to create a self-sustained coral restoration project. We put back the electricity but only at ‘night’ treatment.

While Ahmad Allahgholi , the Managing Director of Coralive, was on the island the team learnt many new things related to Mineral Accretion Technology.

Once the team and all equipment were ready, we started moving the non-electrified tables (10 in total) in an area in need of restoration.

We will regularly monitor the restored area to assess how a coral restoration intervention impacts the biodiversity. Our plan is to replace tables at the circle on a rotation of 8 months. This will help to create a project that can just be perpetuated over time.

Old style coral restoration

With corals growing at a great pace around Fregate Island, the Conservation team had to work on the old coral restoration site set up by Coralive in 2018. Corals placed on the domes grew so big and heavy that the structures collapsed.

The conservation team spent time working on fixing the structures making them flat and fixing corals to the substrate. Now the old site doesn’t need to be on Mineral Accretion Technology anymore. All cables, anodes and other equipment was also removed to clean the area. We have observed that mesh structures fixed directly on rubble fields help stabilizing the rubbles and create a good substrate for corals to growth.?