Ocean conservation advocate and divemaster Danny Ocampo is appalled by the sight of plastic waste every time he takes a dive in Anilao, a famous dive spot in the town of Mabini in Batangas.
Ocampo, together with his fellow dive enthusiasts, makes it a point to pick up trash, mostly single-use plastics on the ocean floor, as part of their diving and sightseeing activities.
“But what [are we] to do with garbage?” he asked.
Ocampo refers to the wreckages or remnants of failed artificial reef and coral gardening projects that he finds on the ocean floor, which end up polluting the coastal and marine environment in the Philippines.
On his Facebook post to celebrate World Oceans Day on June 8, Ocampo shared the photos he took from his past dives, expressing dismay over what he calls the creeping garbage of man-made reefs.
Man-made reefs
An artificial reef is a man-made structure deployed in the ocean to mimic the functions and characteristics of a natural reef.
In the Philippines, the deployment of artificial reefs or artificial habitats aims to address the decline in fish production by allowing the natural regeneration and recolonization of degraded coral reefs and their environment.
Coral gardening, meanwhile, is a method of regenerating corals by transplanting live coral fragments either over the surface of a natural structure such as rocks or degraded reefs, or man-made structures deployed for the purpose. It also aims to provide another tourist attraction in the oceans.
Feel-good projects
According to Ocampo, diving resorts offer artificial reef and coral gardening projects in their tour packages for foreign and local tourists, which they consider a way of bringing back to life the country’s degraded coastal and marine environment.
“[These tourists] feel good leaving behind something, but after a year this is what happens,” Ocampo told the BusinessMirror in an interview over Zoom on June 20.
“These projects are supposed to have permits from the government. Some are even implemented together with the BFAR [Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources], Philippine Navy, and [Philippine] Coast Guard,” he lamented.
Fad since the 70s
Dr. Wilfredo Y. Licuanan, founding director of the Br. Alfred Shields FSC Ocean Research Center of the De La Salle University (DLSU), said artificial reef or artificial habitat projects became widespread in the 1970s up to the 1980s.
This period saw old tires, and even old cars, dropped on the ocean floors to provide artificial homes to fish or as replacements to coral reefs damaged by destructive fishing methods.
He also said that even old ships were sunk to provide an artificial habitat for fish and other marine life—an old practice but not a very good idea.
Reef heals itself
“One of the things we point out why it’s not a good idea is, in most cases, it is best to just allow the reef to heal itself,” he said.
A full professor at the DLSU Biology Department, Licuanan explained that similar projects commonly shown on social media are not addressing the reason why the reefs are dying to begin with.
“If the factors that kill the corals are still there, gathering the corals in one place makes them more likely to die because they are not normally transferred,” he said.
Licuanan noted that there is a joint order that provides the guidelines for the establishment and management of artificial reefs in the Philippines, referring to the Departments of Environment and Natural Resources, Agriculture and National Defense Memorandum 2000-01.
According to Licuanan, artificial reefs and coral gardening should require special permits from the local mayor and BFAR.
The regulation was put in place because these artificial reef and coral gardening projects, which were borne out of the goodness of people, lack the much-needed science, he said.
However, these guidelines were not implemented or followed, resulting in failed projects, including those implemented by communities without the guidance of concerned authorities and experts in related fields of science.
Different reef species
Many believe that what they see on social media could be replicated anywhere else, but “they need to realize that there are different species of reefs,” Licuanan said.
The Philippines has, by conservative estimate, about 600 species of reefs, while other areas have no more than 50 coral species.
“This is the big difference,” he said.
Another difference is that rich countries such as the US can spend money on reefs, but this is “not realistic for low- or middle-income countries like the Philippines.”
In a Department of Science and Technology-funded project, Licuanan undertook a nationwide assessment of the coral reefs in the Philippines and found that they are in a worst state.
“Zero percent of the country’s coral reefs are in excellent condition,” he said.
Extensive study needed
For coral reef and coral gardening projects to succeed, Licuanan said there should be an extensive study on where an artificial reef can be deployed, stay in place and not easily destroyed by ocean current, especially during strong typhoons. It should also determine which coral species can be used in coral gardening for a particular area.
“Because of the huge number of species here in the Philippines, even experts have difficulty identifying them, so that’s already a problem,” he said.
When the wrong coral species is placed beside another species, one of them tends to die due to competition for essential nutrients, food and space.
Alarming trend
According to Licuanan, there is reason to be alarmed when an increasing number of resorts with diving schools or offer diving as an attraction includes artificial reef and coral gardening project as part of a tour package.
He noted that some resort owners who have the capacity to finance such projects—without consulting the experts—may exploit the good intention of people.
In coral gardening, for instance, he noted that some fishermen tapped by these resorts tend to gather live coral fragments by cutting them off from healthy corals and offering them as “corals of opportunity” to be transplanted by tourists.
Reef monitoring
Licuanan said that, to help protect and conserve these corals, activities should be limited and communities should be empowered to help in reef monitoring.
Reef monitoring, he said, will enable concerned authorities to know in advance which reefs, natural or man-made, are exposed to serious threats, and can then introduce measures to reduce stress to the threatened corals. This is particularly helpful in case of ocean warming that cause coral bleaching.
“Monitoring provides us early warning. We can identify the areas [where corals are] prone to bleaching as opposed to areas [where] corals recover that are not experiencing bleaching at all. That way, we can do something about it,” he said.
For his part, Ocampo appealed to resort owners and fellow divers to organize activities to help protect and conserve the corals, such as monitoring various threats to them.
Besides coral bleaching, divers can also undertake activities that will address, if not prevent, the outbreak of crown-of-thorns starfish that can extensively damage and even wipe out an entire coral reef in a matter of days.
More important, he said, is for dive resorts, dive instructors and divers themselves to discourage artificial reef and coral gardening projects that tend to do more harm than good to the coastal and marine environment.