Thanks to a pioneering fragmentation approach, coral growth that would usually take up to 100 years to produce is now happening on reefs in as little as two years. By Henrylito D. Tacio.

Camiguin, Philippines, December 2020. “Although our study is still far from complete, we were able to (totally) restore a portion of coral reefs within the bay area,” said Alexandra Hill, a British marine biologist who headed a study looking at reef regeneration in the island province of Camiguin, the Philippines.

Hill’s Camiguin reef-rescue team employed a relatively new technology that involves the process of micro-fragmentation and colony fusion of coral fragments. This differs significantly from the more common coral restoration methods that usually focus on branching species.

“In this technique, the massive corals – which normally have a slow growth rate – are fragmented or broken up using special equipment,” explained Hill, “and the corals exhibit a faster growth rate when fragmented,” she added. “Furthermore, fragments from the same donor colony have the ability to fuse together when physically joined which increases their overall surface area and their chances of survival.”

The new quick-growth fragmenting approach was pioneered by Dr. David E. Vaughan, a researcher at the Mote Marine Laboratory in Florida, USA.

“Years back I was working on breeding tropical saltwater fish, and I said lets grow some coral for the aquarium trade so people don’t have to take coral from reefs,” he smiles. “Then Jaques Cousteau’s grandson visited and told me I was totally missing the point, only growing corals for aquariums.” Vaughan became so successful at growing corals for ocean transplanting that he left his fish-based job, and dedicated his efforts to growing reef corals for areas that had seen extensive die-back for various reasons .

The Camiguin experiment using his method was conducted in Cabuan Marine Protected Area (CMPA), which is a completely different marine environment from the areas in Miami where Vaughan had worked; its reefs were degraded due partly due to a strong typhoon which hit the island in 2014.  Because of this, two government agencies, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) looked at conducting coral propagation and reef rehabilitation programs on the site, and the area became the home base and a model site for several coastal management programs.

“The site where we ran the (coral fragmentation) experiment has a relatively good condition due to previous restoration,” Hill noted. “Due to the small scale of the experiment, the team mostly consisted of members of the local Sangkalikasan Producers Cooperative (SPC) environmental group and volunteers from Camiguin Polytechnic State College,” she added.

The experiment started last year but stopped suddenly in March when COVID-19 hit.

“The disruption due to Covid-19 really affected our work,” Hill admitted. “All of us on the team were itching to get back in the ocean and check up on our fragments and see how they were doing.” But when the team was allowed back, initial findings showed good results. The team measured the success of the experiment using mortality rate and growth rate, and although the data set was incomplete the initial findings showed promising results, and follow up dives clearly showed a high growth rate.

“Our experiment has shown that micro-fragmentation and colony fusion can work successfully in this country,” explained Hill.

“The ability to restore a larger variety of corals on the reef is beneficial as more diverse reefs have been shown to be more resistant to change.” All of which means that Filipino coral reefs can be restored to self-sustaining life. 

This is good news for local fishermen and those whose livelihoods are anchored on fishing – and the reefs that help sustain it. In the Philippines, an estimated 10%-15% of total fishery output comes from around coral reefs, with a great majority of small island communities seeing most of their income from reef fisheries.

“Coral reef fish yields range from 20-25 metric tons per square kilometer a year for healthy reefs,” noted Dr. Angel C. Alcala, an authority in the biogeography of amphibians and reptiles and artificial coral reefs in Southeast Asia. And with micro-fragmentation technique implementation, the coral reefs around Camiguin should soon be restored to their former glory. “We are all excited about this,” said Fannie Guanzon, SPC chairperson. “This is what we’ve been waiting for; something to develop, something new that has a real impact.”