Southern Leyte Coral Reef Conservation Project: October 2006 update
Added to website: 03 November 2006
Project Brief
Aim
The Southern Leyte Coral Reef Conservation Project (SLCRCP) is a three-year collaborative project (2002–2005), 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.Many of our experienced volunteers left us at the start of this month. However, new volunteers soon arrived and began dive training followed by science training. We now have a couple of dive teams ready to survey well into next month.
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.orgThroughout the month we have completed several Reef Check surveys next to and inside the MPA at Sta Sofia as part of the international Reef Check program. The Reef Check organisation have expressed their pleasure that we have completed such a large quantity of surveys as part of their ongoing global monitoring program.
Marine Protected Area (M.P.A) Assessments
Background: Over our last 18 months here we have help set up and protect 4 M.P.A.s or ‘Fish Sanctuaries’ around the municipality of Padre Burgos: Lungsoda’an, Sta. Sofia, Tangka’an, and Buenavista. These sanctuaries help protect fish until they are large enough to swim further in search of food. When they do, they will leave the sanctuary and be available to be fished. This means that the fish caught are larger but also more abundant because they have had the protection over the time needed to reach sexual maturity and reproduction. Our primary assessments occurred around a year ago and the monitoring will help us to assess the impact this protection has had on the reefs.We plan to survey the MPA at Molopolo/Sta. Cruz in Macrohon next month for the Municipal Office there and the Provincial Government of Southern Leyte. This provides us with an exciting opportunity as the MPA was established 10 years ago and promises to hold a large diversity of marine life.
Education and Community Projects
This month has been another busy month for us here at Ampo with, perhaps more time and effort than usual put into our community events due to the amount of practice one of them in particular required…
On Friday 6th October, Reef Rangers from San Roque National High School completed their first proper surveys in order to compare the inside and outside of Sta. Sofia MPA. It was hoped they would be able to surveys the seabed next to their school but bad weather was hampering our attempts. The event ran smoothly and they will be presenting the information as a set of posters in due course.
At the end of September it was requested by the Municipality of Padre Burgos that we join them in their 49th anniversary celebrations of the founding of Padre Burgos. We were invited to join in with many of the events taking place over the week long celebration and asked to give a special performance of the Filipino national dance, the Tinikling at the festival dinner. During the week staff and volunteers from CCC excelled in the NGO volleyball tournament coming 2nd overall. Groups also attended the amateur boxing, two parades and a superb variety talent show by the pupils of St James’ High School. In the preceding weeks, the CCC staff and volunteers received expert tuition in the Tinikling dance and then we practiced, practiced, practiced. As we danced out to centre stage in front of mayors, congressmen and most of Padre Burgos, the crowd went wild. Adrenalin and smiling faces kept us going and five minutes later we exited stage left to rapturous applause (or was it laughter?) in appreciation of our weeks of hard work. Following this, various awards were presented to the townsfolk including one to Coral Cay Conservation for all of its education and conservation work in the municipality.
Coral Cay has built up an incredible relationship, indeed friendship, with the people of Padre Burgos over the past three years as a result of our strong community efforts. By being deeply involved with educational and social events such as the town festival, Coral Cay has been able to promote its message to a wider and more attentive audience.
At the end of the month on 28th October, San Isidro National High School visited us for an open day. A total of 35 staff and students attended and were taught about general coral reef biology, threats to the reef, marine sanctuaries and the need to protect the environment. The students prepared poster presentations to take back to their schools for other children to read and following a snorkelling session they were all treated to a rousing performance of Fred the Fish.
Interesting/Unusual Sightings
Wow! This month has been a real cracker in terms of exciting sightings!
At the start of the month we were lucky enough to see our first whale shark of the season at Sta. Sofia MPA. It was a mere baby but at 5m long it certainly seemed big as it cruised by us just a few metres away. These fish, the largest in the world, are harmless plankton feeders that cruise the surface waters. They can grow to 12m in length and are an awesome sight under the water.
In addition to this, some of the staff and volunteers have been fortunate enough to see several Napoleon wrasse of about 1m in length in the waters around Padre Burgos. These large fish are a impressive reef inhabitants and have suffered from overfishing in the past. They can grow up to 230cm long and if allowed to do so one full size adult will produce many more offspring than several smaller individuals.
Some of our staff and volunteers were convinced they saw a shark off the home reef at Ampo last week. After some debate over the matter and a little extra research the fish involved was confirmed as a cobia, Rachycentron canadum. This is a wide rangiong species that can grow to 2m in length, occasionally visits coral reefs and is often confused for a shark, especially in poor visibility, which was present on the day. They are a very curious fish and the one in question did swim right up to some of our divers at a fair speed.
Fig. 5. Batfish/spadefish seen inside Sta. Sofia MPA (Photo: Polly Whyte).
Finally, some large schools of juvenile and adult batfish/spadefish (Platax teira) were sighted in Sta. Sofia MPA during a dive at the end of the month. These beautiful fish have huge fins as juveniles (hence, batfish) before they change shape as adults (spadefish). We always enjoy seeing these fish and to be treated to the sight of so many was great!
Coral Cay Conservation provides resources to help sustain livelihoods and alleviate poverty through the protection, restoration and management of coral reefs and tropical forests.
