[Coral-List] Fringing reef Central Sulwaesi

[tomascik at novuscom.net]

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