Saving coral reefs via citizen science | Star Golden Hearts Award 2024 - video Dailymotion

The Star

Reef Check Malaysia, a marine conservation NGO, trains certified divers and local islanders to conduct reef rehabilitation and resilience surveys.   The collected data guides conservation efforts for Malaysia's coral reefs.   For their noble efforts, Reef Check Malaysia is named as one of the 10 winners of the Star Golden Hearts Award (SGHA) 2024.   SGHA is an annual award by The Star that honours everyday Malaysian unsung heroes.   For more details, visit sgha.com.my.   WATCH MORE: https://thestartv.com/c/news  SUBSCRIBE: https://cutt.ly/TheStar  LIKE: https://fb.com/TheStarOnline

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00:00Hi, I'm Theresa. We are from Reef Check Malaysia.

00:03We are the winners of the Star Golden Hearts Awards 2024.

00:17As the saying goes, it takes a village to raise a child.

00:20It also takes a community to rehabilitate coral reefs.

00:25Reef Check Malaysia, a marine conservation non-governmental organisation,

00:30relies on the local community to preserve Malaysia's beautiful coral reefs

00:35through its community marine conservation groups.

00:39One of our core programme of work is actually Reef Check surveys,

00:43where we do reef health monitoring at more than 300 different sites across the country.

00:48So ecodivers are the volunteers who help us do the reef monitoring surveys.

00:52And in terms of volunteers that we have, we have trained more than 1,000 ecodivers around the country.

00:57We also train more than 100 local islanders to take part in conservation work with us.

01:03Reef Check Malaysia has also scaled the community groups to Mersing, Pulau Redang and Semporna.

01:10To aid local members, NgSed, a reef rehabilitation toolkit,

01:15was launched this year as a step-by-step guide to replant corals.

01:20So our coral rehabilitation methodology involves a lot of local community.

01:24It's more citizen science, so it does not entail you to have a marine biologist degree.

01:29Ideally, our long-term goal is for local community to be the ones who are responsible and empowered

01:35to undertake marine conservation actions, and it won't be just Reef Check Malaysia doing the work.

01:41Reef rehabilitation is to identify damaged coral reef areas

01:45and then regrow corals by transplanting live corals from other areas.

01:51Coral fragments that have been recently damaged either by a storm

01:55or by perhaps an unsuspecting tourist accidentally kicking the corals.

01:59So we try to rescue these coral fragments, we'll attach them to the glass bottles

02:04and every week we will actually go down and do maintenance.

02:09NgSed says it takes a year of maintenance and monitoring

02:12and when the coral fragments have grown larger, they can survive on their own.

02:18Another one of Reef Check Malaysia's main projects are reef surveys.

02:22NgSed says they will monitor over 300 sites every year with the help of more than 1,000 eco-divers.

02:30Yes, we do this annually. At the same sites, we use a GPS to mark the exact same locations.

02:35So the first thing we do is we lay a 100-metre transect tape

02:38and the divers will use this underwater slate to count certain indicator species.

02:42Each trip, depending on where we go, ranges between 10 to 12 dives at each time.

02:46And with all this information, it gives us an overview of how the health of the marine ecosystems are doing around these areas.

02:54The team also removes fishing nets which get stuck on the corals.

02:58NgSed says these nets may not be from Malaysian waters but had drifted from other places.

03:05Once we get the report, we'll work with the local islanders to remove these ghost nets

03:09because what happens is a lot of marine animals, marine creatures get tangled in the ghost nets

03:14and unfortunately they would starve or they'll end up dead.

03:18The other thing is crown-of-thorns starfish removal.

03:21So crown-of-thorns is a coral predator. They'll eat healthy corals.

03:25So if there's an outbreak, let's say there's more than a certain amount of crown-of-thorns starfish in an area

03:31and then we'll start trying to remove them either by physically taking them onshore and burying them

03:37or we inject them with a vinegar concoction which would kill them.

03:42Established in 2007, Reef Check Malaysia started with a goal of monitoring reef health

03:48and have since branched out to community-based conservation programmes

03:52such as advocacy and promoting sustainable marine tourism in the country.

03:58The team has since expanded to 21 starfish offices in Pulau Redang, Pulau Tioman,

04:03the Mersing Group of Islands and in Sabah, Semporna, Kota Kinabalu and Mantanani Islands.

04:11So a lot of people do not realise that coral reefs are actually the habitats for and necessary grounds for fishes.

04:18So it's actually a very important source of our food security in the future.

04:21If there's no more coral reefs, we might get less fish stock

04:25and seafood is an important diet, especially for Malaysia.

04:29And besides that also, coral reefs and the marine ecosystems, they're important for economic livelihood,

04:34especially for coastal communities.

04:36So it's not just about protecting the environment, but it's protecting our livelihoods and food security in the future.

04:42Ng urged the public to participate in caring for the reefs through ways like using reef-safe sunscreen

04:48and eco-friendly products as well as choosing eco-friendly holiday operators.

04:54Some of the major threats to our ecosystem are unsustainable fishing or overfishing in our waters.

05:00We also have impacts from unsustainable tourism,

05:03things like you've seen people maybe snorkelling or diving and stepping on corals.

05:08And also things like fish feeding or turtle feeding, just to get the perfect selfie.

05:13We're just changing their diets and changing how the whole ecosystem interacts.

05:18Happy 10th anniversary to the Star Golden Hearts Awards.

05:21Amazing effort through all these years.

Saving coral reefs via citizen science | Star Golden Hearts Award 2024

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