Coral Garden in Badung Regency

01/07/2020 Views : 210

JOB NICO SUBAGIO

Coral Garden in Badung Regency Bali

Job Nico Subagio

 

Introduction

The Director General of Marine Space Management of the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries Aryo Hanggoro, in the Seminar on Challenges and Policy on Cultured Ornamental Corals Trading  in Indonesia on June 4, 2020, as a speaker gave several statements that gave hope for coastal use. One of them is the use of coral reefs in the context of economic transformation, as directed by the President of the Republic of Indonesia at the time of his inauguration. Ten Establishment of the National Water Conservation Area (KKPN)  have been established, not only prioritizing conservation issues, but also economic aspects. There must be an economic value that can be utilized as a source of foreign exchange and also for the surrounding community, especially in the utilization zone. He also stressed, there are four economic potentials of coral reefs that must be developed, namely aquarium ornament, with ornamental coral exports, fisheries, biopharmacology and marine tourism. The seminar also revealed the internal discourse of the Directorate of Marine Space Management to establish Coral Garden and Coral Park. At Coral Garden various types of coral are grown as ex situ conservation , such as the Bogor Botanical Gardens for plant conservation. In the Coral Park area, coral is grown from the surrounding reefs that are already there as a means of conservation in situ. The development of the Coral Park is in line with the discourse of the formation of the Maritime Tourism Village or abbreviated as Dewi Bahari. Indonesia is expected to have Dewi Bahari. The existence of this Coral Park will be a new attraction for Dewi Bahari. Aryo Hanggoro called on the Regents in the coastal areas to develop Coral Park in their respective areas.

 

Nusa Dua Coral Garden

One area that is already underway said the Director General of Marine Space Management at the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries is the Nusa Dua Coral Garden (NDCG). Coral Garden was initiated by the Nusa Dua Reef Foundation (NDRF) in mid-2006, after the phenomenon of global bleaching. This activity aims to see the possibility of coral growth in this area.

Initial transplantation experiments on dead coral substrates and sand-coated concrete steel skeletons. Transplantation results show that corals can grow well in the Nusa Dua area, especilly on the Mengiat beach.

The addition of the structure continued gradually in the following years. Until early 2020, NDCG has installed 271 reef stars structures by transplanting about 4000 coral fragments from 6 hard coral genera, namely Acropora, Montipora, Pocillopora, Galaxea, Stylophora and Goniopora (Figure 1)

According to Pariama, this coral garden is now inhabited  by 133 species of fish, various types of crustaceans, molluscs, echinoderms, several types of soft corals, marine anemones, and others.

 Safri Burhanudin, Deputy for Human Resources, Science and Technology and Maritime Culture Coordination, the Coordinating Ministry for Maritime Affairs said that the Coral Garden Nusa Dua could be a good place for the collection of diversity of Indonesian coral species. It is hoped that the artificial reefs of Nusa Dua can become the pioneers of the Indonesian Coral Reef Ecosystem Mini Park. Of course this Coral Garden can be a tourist attraction, especially marine tourism and can also be a means of education and research stations for students.

https://www.mongabay.co.id/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/coral-garden.jpg

 

Figure 1. Coral transplant at Coral Garden Nusa Dua. Photo of the Hutasoit Pariama Collection

The Biology Study Programe of the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Udayana University also carried out several transplantation activities and made this area a place to conduct practical activities and also a place of research for lecturers and students.

 

 

Coral Garden at Melisan Beach in Tuban

Another area in Badung regency, which has the potential to become a Coral Garden is the Melisan beach to the southwest of The Patra Bali Resort and Villas, north of Bali's Ngurah Rai Airport Runway.

In the past this area was a reef area that was good enough for coral growth. Coral mining by the communities, airport development followed by runway extension causes diversion of currents causing coastal erosion and turbidity followed by sedimentation which in turn give an effect to  coral survival.

The Bali Beach Concervation Project by the Bali-Penida River Basin Office of the Ministry of Public Works and Public Housing has prevented abrasion by constructing revetments, break waters, submerge break water and sand filling in 2006-2008.

Submerge break water is a agregation of stones in a tightly arranged block covering an area of ​​25m x 25m. At that time 16 blocks were determined, so that an area of ​​16 x 25 m x 25m = 10,000 m2 was available. The rocks are limestones originating from Taliwang, West Nusa Tenggara. (Figure 2) In these limestones coral fragments were transplanted. The coral fragments were taken from the area where break water will be built. This transplantations is a compensation for damage due to the work of Break Water N2.

Figure 2. Arrangement of Submerge Break Water Rock for Coral Transplantation when the Bali Beach Concervation Project for Kuta Beach is nearing completion (2008) (Edited from Arisandi Putra’s Video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCkpml4M86Y)

 

Each stone before being placed into the water were bored pairly. Nine  pairs of hole on each upper surface of the stone. The distance between holes in pairs is 5-8 cm. The hole serves to nail a pair of spikes, which swoop inward. Between the nails coral fragment was placed which  then be clamped by draping cable ties, then tightening the cable ties so that pressing down the fragment. Thus the fragment will be locked tightly, see details in Figure 3.

Coral fragments are transplanted onto the rocks and also beside the outside of the rocks which is on the edge of each block. Fragments were transported from the location of the building called Break Water N2. From this location 5447 colonies were moved . The colony was broken down into fragments, branched colonies were transplanted as many as 9 fragments on the top surface of each rock. On the side fragments of leaf shape colonies were transplanted. So most of what was transplanted was a branch-shaped colony

Figure 3. Transplantation by attachment and then tied with a tis cable. (Onaka. Et.al., 2013). Nails are tilted in opposite directions so that when the cable is pulled at once it will press down

 

After 1.5 years the transplanted colonies still survive and continue to grow (Figure 4).

Figure 4. a.Growth of Acropora nobilis (Onaka, et.al. 2013)

 

Figure 4 b. Colony growth in general, within 16 months (Onaka et.al., 2013)

But after that there were no reports on the results of monitoring, especially after the project was completed. According to the fishermen slowly the colonies died en masse. Some fishermen said that there was sand piling up along with the runway expansion work

Based on observations in 2019, no live or dead coral colonies were found. A pair of nails to clamp coral fragments are still left on almost every surface (Figure 5)


Gambar 5. Sepasang paku untuk menjepit fragmen karang masih tertinggal di permukaan batuan kapur

 

Those rocks therefore can still be used as  transplantation substrat again. It is important to remember that the selection of colony forms should be preceded by encrusting growth, which then grows as foliose corals, or tabulate corals from the genera of Montipora, Turbinaria, Leptoceris and Goniopora. These types of corals can still be found after 12 years the transplant project is completed. Small colonies that can be called recruit that can still be found are the genera Acropora, Favia, Gonipora, Porites, Stylophora and Platygyra. This small colony appears to have been attached to a planula rather than a transplant.

This area will become the largest Coral Garden in Bali, which covers 1 hectare, If the second transplantation is successful

 

References

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdLwwRC2CWQ&t=29s

https://www.mongabay.co.id/2020/04/11/indahnya-transplantasi-karang-di-nusa-dua-coral-garden/

https://www.mongabay.co.id/2018/10/10/transplantasi-karang-di-nusa-dua-berharap-jadi-taman-terumbu-karang-indonesia/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCkpml4M86Y)

 

Departemen Pekerjaan Umum Direktorat Jenderal Sumber Daya Air Balai Wilayah Sungai Bali. Bali Beach Conservation Project Shore Protection For Kuta Beach. 2007. Term of Reference of Invironmental Impact Mitigation by Coral Transplantation at Kuta. (unpublish)

Departemen Pekerjaan Umum Direktorat Jenderal Sumber Daya Air Balai Wilayah Sungai Bali. Bali Beach Conservation Project Shore Protection For Kuta Beach. 2008. Implementation Report. Coral Transplantation at Kuta Beach For Environmental Impact Mitigation. (unpublish)

Onaka. S , S. Endo and T. Uda Bali Beach Conservation Project And Issues Related To Beach Maintenance After Completion Of Project Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Asian and Pacific Coasts (APAC 2013) Bali, Indonesia, September 24-26, 2013

Onaka S., R. Prasetyo., S Endo and I Yoshii Large-scale coral transplantation in artificial substrates at a shallow lagoon in Kuta Beach, Bali, Indonesia. Galaxea, Journal of Coral Reef Studies (Special Issue): 336-3422013