[Coral-List] Fringing reef Central Sulwaesi
tomascik at novuscom.net
tomascik at novuscom.net
Mon Jan 4 23:31:59 UTC 2021
Dear colleagues,
It’s great to see all the amazing HD videos of healthy coral reefs being
posted these days on social media like LinkedIn, and the amazing success
that some of the coral reef restoration projects have achieved. I went
into some old footage and thought that our colleagues from Indonesia
would be interested to see some historical footage of coral reefs from
parts of Indonesia seldom shown these days. The following are links to 3
video clips that were taken in November, 1995 using a mini-VHS
camcorder.
https://1drv.ms/v/s!Aq1K6CQCBeATgtZXhzS1Lr_sVf6HRA?e=Slx5D2
During one of our trips to Central Sulawesi while writing “The Ecology
of the Indonesian Seas” we spotted a small river (Kuala Kintom River)
from the airplane emptying onto a fringing reef. We were able to find
the reef after we landed in Luwuk and were able to do a couple of dives
to see how the river was affecting the reef. Kintom is just south of
Luwuk, and well populated, yet as you can see from the video the
fringing reef was very healthy. At the time, bombing of reefs as a
fishing techniques was wide spread in this part of the archipelago and
we were expecting the worst, considering the reef’s proximity to fishing
villages. To our surprise the reef was in a good health and while the
reef fish numbers were lower, compared to other areas in the Banggai
Islands, the physical features of the reef were intact, demonstrating
that clear-running rivers and coral reefs can co-exist side-by-side.
https://1drv.ms/v/s!Aq1K6CQCBeATgtZY7WUB1p9pxVUsxQ?e=f0vxHm
This is the footage of our second dive about 200 m north of the earlier
dive (above). A fascinating feature on this fringing reef, beside its
good health, was the narrow (10-20m wide) reef terrace at 13 m depth
that seems to run along the entire reef track. In satellite imagery it’s
the white line just seaward of the dark reef crest band. Originally I
thought that the coral ruble on the reef terrace was a result of fish
bombing, but in fact it’s natural feature of the reef. It seems that the
dense and healthy beds of sediment-tolerant branching corals above the
terrace are the main source of the coral rubble on the reef terrace.
Between July and October these fringing reefs are under the influence of
southeast monsoon (stronger SSW and SW winds). It is likely that during
storms branching corals on the reef crest and the upper reef slope are
broken, and eventually these broken pieces end up below on the terrace
where they accumulate as coral rubble that we see in the video footage.
https://1drv.ms/v/s!Aq1K6CQCBeATgtZbBT9-ksI3suFaoA?e=uUNPNf
Here is the footage of my 3rd and last dive on an amazing fringing reef
about 3 km north of Mandono River, and about 30 km south of Luwuk,
Central Sulawesi. 25 years ago the coastal watersheds between Luwuk and
Batui (about 50 km apart) were still well forested and the rivers and
streams along this stretch of coast ran clear. Considering that even 25
years ago this was a heavily populated area we expected a lot of reef
damage, but we were surprised by a relatively healthy reef. Indonesia is
endowed with a diversity of fringing reef types as a result of its
diverse environmental and geologic settings. The fringing reef shown
here is characteristic of relatively well protected coastlines as is
indicated by the dominance of diverse branching coral community in the
shallow reef crest and upper slope slopes zones of the reef. We were
also amazed that some of the large and dense beds of Acropora halmaherae
(I think) we found at a depth of about 60 feet. At the time we knew that
it was a branching Acropora sp. but we had no idea what species it could
be. In 1998 Carden Wallace and Jacqueline Wolstenholme described a new
Acropora species from the neighbouring Halmahera and its description
seems to fit the general description of the species in this video
footage.
Being close to major urban centers and academic institutions in Luwuk, I
hope that we will see more research into this fringing reef system in
the future. It sure would be interesting to see some recent video
footage or pictures from this reef track.
Anyone interested to learn more about Indonesian fringing coral reefs
can link to: https://lnkd.in/ged6dm7
Happy and Healthy 2021!
Tom
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