In India, divers help revive Goa's fragile coral reefs

DW (English)

Venkatesh Charloo and his team of volunteers dive into Goa's waters to restore fragile coral reefs. Through innovative techniques like transplantation and microfragmentation, they are reviving marine ecosystems and protecting ocean life.

Transcript

00:00At least once a month, these volunteers go on a mission to conserve corals in Goa.

00:09After loading the boat with diving gear, they are off to the sea.

00:14Welcome to coastal impact dive.

00:18So it's going to take us about 45 minutes to get to where we are going.

00:22There are some islands in Goa called Grand Island and St. George Island, that's where

00:25we are going.

00:26It's slightly to the south west from here.

00:34The first stop is to find the location of coral beds that he and his team previously

00:39transplanted.

00:41Venkatesh Chadu left his Kashi banking job in Hong Kong to run a scuba diving centre

00:48and then he founded Coastal Impact, an NGO that is helping increase the coral cover

00:54in Goa's waters.

00:56Almost 60-70% of our oxygen comes from the oceans.

01:01Healthy oceans generate oxygen and that's what comes up and that's what we are surviving

01:06on.

01:07So every, each and every human being on this planet directly is surviving because of the

01:15coral reefs.

01:16Because coral reefs, even though they represent only 0.01% of the entire ocean bottom, they

01:25support almost 25% of all organisms which live in the ocean.

01:30So they are a very, very important ecosystem.

01:34Coral reefs also protect us from giant waves, they act as a breakwater basically underwater.

01:39When they are running parallel to shore, they break down the waves and they minimise the

01:45impact on land, therefore they also stop erosion.

01:52As Venkatesh has now identified and marked the location, it is time for others in the

01:57team to dive.

01:59Alright guys, basically today we are going to do the fifth data point and maintenance

02:07of the coral nursery.

02:09Jeremy Josh is a marine biologist and volunteers with Coastal Impact.

02:14So the species we study here, the species is called Turbinaria mesenterpina and it grows

02:20in these form like flowery plates and they form a lot of ridges and cracks and crevices

02:28for young fish to live in.

02:31And additionally, this species is highly resilient to low light levels, high turbidity and high

02:37nutrient levels, especially the species found in Goa.

02:40So we hope to study that species more and it can be looked at as a possible target species

02:45for restoring reefs in other locations.

02:49The team takes on different roles and maintains international underwater protocols.

02:58Coastal Impact uses the innovative method of coral transplantation, a relatively new

03:04technique.

03:05So we picked up fragments which were already broken, either because of waves or boats carelessly

03:11dropping anchors because they don't know what is down there.

03:14So the pieces were broken but they were still alive.

03:17So we take one of these kit bags down with us, we put those pieces in it, we tie it to

03:24the boat with it still in the water so we don't bring the coral out.

03:28And then we go down, we cut it into small pieces, put it on the tiles so the tiles are

03:32prepared first on the table and then we put the fragments down.

03:37And then you have to come up, mix the epoxy, which is a blend of two different compounds.

03:44So we mix it and within 15 minutes you have to go down and fix it, otherwise it hardens.

03:50So that's how the whole process takes place.

03:53The micro-fragmentation process helps the transplanted corals to grow and for their

03:58behaviour to be studied.

04:00These kind of species grow faster when they are smaller.

04:03That's the whole idea of us trying to see how fast these small corals can grow.

04:08And that data, we can sort of use that to project maybe when this species would grow

04:15somewhere else or how the reef would come back from an event like bleaching, for example,

04:22a mass bleaching.

04:23If you have recruits the next year, how many years would it take for the reef to come back

04:27to the previous situation it was in?

04:30Despite the temperature being really high, 31-32 degrees that the water gets is quite

04:35high for corals to survive.

04:37Despite all that, corals here are quite resilient and we have seen bleached corals recover the

04:43next season.

04:44Volunteers form the backbone of this effort as awareness and resources are still very low.

04:49Sharvani Pinge and Vignesh Shanbhag are spouses who have been volunteering with Coastal Impact

04:54for a few years.

04:55We have some of these tools, like we use just brushes or even toothbrushes or whatever is

05:01available with us to kind of scrape off the algae, the mold and everything that has accumulated

05:07and make sure the corals are clean.

05:09We measure the corals in periodic intervals so we can estimate and we can understand how

05:14the corals are growing over a period of time.

05:16So we use the scales or sometimes even a one-year calipers.

05:21Does the volunteer work help their relationship?

05:23Yes, it does.

05:24We get to spend time doing the things that we love.

05:27It's like a cause that is close to our heart that we are following, that we are doing something

05:32about so it makes us feel good about ourselves.

05:35We get to spend time, we are physically active, we are also contributing some to the environment

05:40so it's a win-win all around.

05:44Diving is cost intensive and Venkatesh Charlu has been trying out new ways to raise money

05:49for his efforts.

05:50So I figured why don't we just put the corals up for adoption.

05:54It's a novel thing, it's a brilliant gift for anything like anniversaries, birthdays, whatever.

06:01So we decided to put that up and what we do is we generate paperwork which gives them

06:07a tax break also from the amount that they are spending on that.

06:11This is still largely a labour of love that Venkatesh Charlu and his team of volunteers

06:16aim to expand as only a handful of organisations are involved in similar efforts.

06:24We need to fight for them because they are the voiceless victims of what we are doing

06:30on land and by and large nobody gets to see that because it's all out of sight, out of mind underwater.

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