COMBINING ART AND MARINE SCIENCE
USING MATERIALS TO CREATE NEW HOMES FOR CORALS
Artificial Reefs are used to help expand or repair coral reefs. We create these reefs using limited resources and man power. During a PADI Marine Resource Management Course or a Marine Conservation Internship, you may have the chance to build your own structure.
Once deployed, these structures serve as a substrate where we have special permission by the Department of Marine and Coastal Resources to transplant “Corals of Opportunity” and be able to help reduce the pressure on our natural reefs.
HOW DOES IT WORK ?
Planning
Structures require planning, materials and permission from the Department of Marine and Coastal Resources.
Building
It can take days or weeks building a structure with volunteers and interns, to make it ready for deployment underwater.
Deployment
Deploying a structure requires expertise to safely deploy and to position the structure in the correct area.
Transplantation
Once the structure has settled, corals of opportunity can be transplanted to grow and flourish.
WHY ARTIFICIAL REEFS ?
With coral reefs degrading around the world, due to climate changes and human impacts, we need to try and help the reefs we have left.
Artificial reefs help in 3 ways. First, they provide a substrate for broken corals to be attached, to create new life in areas where they have been devastated before. The second way is that the creation of these new areas brings scuba divers to enjoy them, meaning less divers on the natural coral reef. This theoretically reduces the potential impact/damage from accidental contact. Finally, building structures brings inhabitants giving a potential for fish and invertebrate populations a chance to increase.
ARTIFICIAL REEF FACTS
We created our own artificial reef dive site over a decade ago and have continually expanded the site.
It also serves as a research area into coral growth rates and is part of our Adopt A Coral program.
With full approval by the Department of Marine and Coastal Resources we are allowed to transplant coral.
Artificial Reefs have been used for 100’s of years to help improve fish stocks, and were only recently utilised to help rebuild coral reefs.
GET INVOLVED !
To join in our Artificial Reefs project, you can sign up for a Marine Conservation Internship. During this internship, you will gain knowledge and skills to build, monitor and maintain artificial reefs.
Or if you want to help support our projects, you can join the Adopt A Coral program and get your own coral that will be transplanted on your behalf (you even get to name it!).
Help save and restore our coral reefs which help our shorelines, provide fish stocks and potential for new cures.
GET MORE INFO !
If you have questions, about any of our projects, citizen science, research, volunteering, internships or training.
Please get in touch with us!