Divers to honour Xmas by restoring coral reefs in Sabah

Some of the coral cages to be placed on the seabed.

KOTA KINABALU: A certain family will be celebrating this Christmas season not around food in the warmth of a home, but mostly under the waters around Pom Pom island, which lies off Sabah’s east coast.

A diver preparing coral cages for the planting initiative.

The eight members of this family are not blood relatives, but they are bonded by their love of the environment. They call themselves Le One Dive Team and they got together in previous years to collect rubbish off the streets of Kota Kinabalu and to clean up beaches and the coastal seabed.

This year they’ll plant corals on the seabed in the hope of restoring the natural beauty of Pom Pom and its waters.

Emanuelle Girelle (seated right) and his team members.

The group is led by Italian-born scuba-diving instructor Emanuelle Girelle and Singaporean Percy Looi. Five Malaysians and a Dutch national make up the rest of the team. The Malaysians include three Sabahans who are dive masters.

The team will take tourists and other interested members of the public underwater to show them the damage done to corals by fish bombing, diving activities and other human pursuits.

Girelle said he hoped this would trigger a desire to protect the corals.

Those interested in taking up the coral inspection option as an addition to their diving package will be charged a small fee. Girelle said the money would go back directly into coral conservation efforts, including transplantation.

He considers the Christmas period an opportune time for the initiative.

“Christmas is when everyone is in a good mood and ready to help the world and give something back to Mother Nature,” he said. “It’s a win-win situation because they get to celebrate Christmas while learning about conservation and contribute to saving the environment.

“We will go underwater with Santa hats and outfits when we do this.”

A businessman who operates a resort on the island has agreed to provide the team with a plot of land for the coral farm and has allowed it to set up a coral learning centre at his facility. The team will educate interested members of the public on the importance of coral reefs and the effect of tourism activities on marine life.

Girelle said some people were not aware that even simple activities could jeopardise coral reefs. “Less eco-conscious tour operators often bring tourists over to these picturesque sceneries without explaining the importance and fragility of the ecosystem and organisms in it.”

As a result, he said, tourists would step on corals while snorkelling, pick up sea stars for the sake of a nice picture and collect sea shells to keep as souvenirs. These activities would damage coral reefs, he added.

Members of Girelle’s team will take a maximum of eight persons for each diving session to ensure ease of management.

“We will go down between three to five meters deep to plant the corals,” he said.

“We will put coral rubble, which are basically dead corals, in cages made of aluminium netting because they don’t rust. After that, we will take broken but living corals and tie them to the cages, which will be placed on slopes underwater.

“The tourists can come back in a year’s time to check out the progress of their work.”

He said his team planned to put in place up to 30 cages by Dec 28.

This particular activity is gaining popularity with many diving and conservation organisations that are seeking to replenish coral populations in damaged reefs. According Girelle, it is the easiest and fastest way to repopulate corals.

Photo taken last year of divers wearing Santa hats during an underwater clean-up at Sapi island.

It is a long-term project, unlike the beach clean-ups the team has carried out every year for the past three years at Pulau Sapi, a popular tourist attraction that can be reached in about 15 minutes by boat from Kota Kinabalu.

Girelle tying up a net containing rubbish collected from the sea.

Rubbish collected by divers during an underwater clean-up.

Plastic bottles and other rubbish collected during underwater clean-ups.

Girelle said his team collected at least 300kg of rubbish in that period. “It may well be more because in the earlier stages we did not compile data,” he said.

“We hope to start something good at Pom Pom. The results won’t be overnight as it takes between 10 and 15 years for the corals to fully grow.

“But it’s a start. And to add on to that Christmas feeling, we will make a bonfire at the beach at night and celebrate with everyone.” - FMT