Southern Leyte Coral Reef Conservation Project: June 2007 update
Added to website: 03 July 2007
Project Update – Claudio de Sassi, Project Scientist
June 2007
Project Brief
Aim
The Southern Leyte Coral Reef Conservation Project (SLCRCP) is a six-year collaborative project (2002–2008), to survey the coral reefs of Sogod Bay. The programme provides training and conservation education opportunities for local Filipinos, as part of an integrated programme to develop local capacity and ensure the long-term protection and sustainable use of marine resources throughout the region.
Location
Sogod Bay, Southern Leyte, South-Eastern Philippines.
CCC Partners
CCC is working at the invitation of and in partnership with the Provincial Government of Southern Leyte and the Philippine Reef & Rainforest Conservation Foundation Inc (PRRCFI).
Marine Science Programme
Background: Our baseline surveying programme is designed to gather data about the biological and morphological standing of Sogod Bay. These data are combined with information on human and natural impacts on the reefs, along with oceanographic data, to ultimately produce a Geographical Information System ‘map’ of the various habitats of the bay. It is like a ‘stock-take’ of the current marine resources, which is being produced to provide policymakers and concerned institutions with information necessary to effectively manage those resources. To date, the northern end of Sogod Bay has been surveyed, and the remainder of the project will concentrate on the south and Limasawa Island. If you would like more information on our surveying rationale or methodology, please don’t hesitate to contact our Project Scientist.
Another very good month on the survey front! In fact, we again crossed the line of 1 km of surveyed terrain, with 1470m baseline survey carried out! This month, we shifted the focus on the East coast of Limasawa, concentrating the efforts in the waters off Magellan, and finally completing the “East Sector”! This is composed of 20 transects covering the East Coast, excluding the northern and southern tip. We are very happy about this achievement, and we thank all the volunteers who performed a very good job! The following table lists all the transects concluded this month.
| Transect | Barangay | Site Impression | Start Depth | Finish Depth |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| B0332 | E. Limasawa | Good | 24.0 | 1.9 |
| B0335 | E. Limasawa | Average | 24.0 | 1.7 |
| B0336 | E. Limasawa | Average | 24.0 | 2.3 |
| B0337 | E. Limasawa | Average | 24.1 | 2.6 |
| B0338 | E. Limasawa | Average | 24 | 2.0 |
| B0339 | E. Limasawa | Average | 24.1 | 2.1 |
| B2715 | St. Roque | Very Good | 24.0 | 2.1 |
ReefCheck
Background: Based at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), ReefCheck is the name of both the world’s largest coral reef monitoring network and of the common methodology used, allowing the comparison of results from various locations worldwide. Although less detailed than CCC’s baseline surveys, the ReefCheck method is effective for monitoring changes in reef health over time. CCC is proud to be a major contributing member of ReefCheck. Check out their site at www.ReefCheck.org
We assumed that the weather would not allow us to survey for the whole month on Limasawa. In the end the sea condition surprised us positively and we took advantage once again to keep up the baseline survey work. However, we dedicated a couple of days to Reef Check, practicing this method with our volunteers and completing 2 actual surveys, covering 100m.
CCC believes in the importance of this worldwide program, and wants to continue as one of the main contributors to Reef Checks ongoing efforts to assess the world’s coral reefs.
Education and Community Projects
This month started a little slow in terms of community projects; this is because two Science Officers came to end of their contract and left us to take on other challenges; further, I also took my mid term break, taking the chance to visit the near island of Samar, which impressed me with its beautiful landscapes! Once back on duty, I had the pleasure to attend a CRM planning workshop in Pintuyan, lead by Mr. Noel Subere from PLAN International. The workshop, attended by LGUs and various stakeholders, helped all parties to identify the outstanding issues and seek potential counterparts in future projects. The presence of Coral Cay Conservation was very much appreciated especially regarding MPAs’ assessments and advice about the whale shark ecotourism, a great but fragile asset for the Panaon Island area and, in my opinion, to the whole Province.
On Sunday 17th, we decided that the time had come again to visit our little friends of Kinderhilfe Orphanage, so we spent a fantastic day together at their beach in St.Roque. As usual, a lot of energy was required to keep pace with the kids in endless water games, and of course try wherever possible to pass on educational messages about the beloved sea and its inhabitants.
June is known as the “World Environment Month”. For this occasion, many different Agencies, governmental, private sector, as well as NGOs, collaborated to set up a series of educational activities under the motto “Beat the Heat”, a slogan targeting Global Warming.
We found of particular interest a Project named “Adopt a River”, organized by the Maasin Youth Organization (MMAYO) in collaboration with several counterparts. MMAYO aim to restore the degraded Canturing River in Maasin through practical and educational activities, and we were happy to participate with this initiative. Our first contribution was to hold a seminar on Saturday 23rd called “Where the River Ends”, oriented to the coastal resources such as coral reefs, and how human activities affect them. Extending the discussions to other ecosystems further than the river itself aimed to show the bigger picture of the natural environment being a web of apparently isolated systems that are in fact complexly interconnected. Considering this, it is easier to appreciate how human activities rarely affect only one isolated ecosystem but, on the contrary, do often have quite hidden, indirect consequences. A simple example we used, is how coral reefs are affected by the river pollution happening many kilometres upstream from the estuary. The following day, staff and volunteers put their hands deep into rubber gloves and lead a beach clean up around the estuary, while MMAYO was doing the same in the terminal tract of the Canturing River itself. A beach clean up is always a good occasion to involve the community, especially the youth, and exercise some awareness education while working together hands in hands. The joint effort allowed us to collect over 200kg of rubbish, this being a very good output of our efforts but, on the other hand, evidence that faraway too much garbage still lands untreated into natural environments.
On the following Sunday, we made our way to Maasin again for a more formal and enjoyable occasion such as the Employees Night at the Capitol. A staff representative had the pleasure to meet once again Mme Lerias on her Birthday and on one of the last days as her being the Governor of Southern Leyte. On behalf of Coral Cay Conservation, all the present staff and volunteers, and also all of the past volunteers who took part in the project during the last five years, I would like to express Mme Lerias a big, big thank you for the continued support and generosity toward us. Together with the best wishes for her birthday, we all want to wish you all the best for the future!!!
For our final activity off-site for this month, we did our best facing the Leyte Football team in a friendly show game on Friday 29th. Despite much dedication to the cause and effort from the 8-men team, we could not help being defeated, honourably though, by 5 to 3. The best note about the game, however, is that not a single foul needed to be sanctioned by the referee, a good indicator of the actual friendly atmosphere inside and outside the football pitch.
Interesting/Unusual Sightings
This month has been a great month for unusual sightings, with a whale shark being spotted off the house reef by a volunteer and scuba instructor going through an in-water test. Also eagle rays have been spotted on 4 occasions this month, with the final one on the last day of the month off Limasawa passing within 3 metres of the divers! We also had an unverified, fleeting spotting of a possible grey reef shark again off the house reef. It is always good news to see that mega fauna like this are still around. On top of this, we also spotted a humpback grouper (or barramundi cod) and the humphead wrasses have been making continued guest appearances, all this again, on our house reef. Unfortunately, no picture could be taken; capturing the right snapshot to picture these beautiful big guys is very difficult, and we don’t carry cameras with us while surveying to avoid distractions. However, the Reefs house plenty of interesting life forms and, be it small, large, pretty or ugly, and all of them contribute to form and sustain one of the most diverse and biologically amazing ecosystems!
Coral Cay Conservation provides resources to help sustain livelihoods and alleviate poverty through the protection, restoration and management of coral reefs and tropical forests.
