[Coral-List] Corals of St. Martin's Island, Bangladesh

[tomascik at novuscom.net]

Hi everyone,

During the past 20 years, or so, a number of scientific research papers, 
reports, and numerous articles in popular publications came out that 
gave a clear impression of the existence of a coral island and coral 
reefs in the northeastern Bay of Bengal, namely St. Martin’s Island in 
Bangladesh. In 1996 I was given an opportunity to conduct a survey of 
the island. When I was offered this opportunity I was really excited 
because I found out from a 1988 UNEP/IUCN publication (i.e., Coral reefs 
of the world. Volume 2: Indian Ocean, Red Sea and Gulf, p 387) that St. 
Martin’s Island was surrounded by coral reefs. Considering that the 
island is only about 200 km from the world’s largest delta (Ganges 
Brahmaputra Delta) I decided that I really had to see these coral reefs. 
I just completed my work in Indonesia, where I was fortunate to actually 
see a number of beautiful and healthy delta-front coral reefs systems, 
so to have a chance to see another coral reefs system in a delta-front 
setting was irresistible. Long story short, there are no coral reefs on 
St. Martins Island, but I did find vibrant coral communities and other 
coral associated flora and fauna present, and considering where the 
island is located that did ‘blow my mind’ so to speak.  We have just 
published an editorial in the ‘Ocean Science Journal’ that we hope will 
shed some light on the reality of St. Martin’s Island and its amazing 
coral communities. We hope that this will clarify the coral reef story 
and hopefully assist the decisionmakers in Bangladesh in their future 
decisions to fund research project in the area.

Anyone who is interested to learn more about St. Martin’s Island please 
visit:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/353022202_Comment_on_Gazi_et_al_2020_Detecting_Coral_Reef_Degradation_on_St_Martin's_Island_Bangladesh

Anyone interested in the 1997 report on the coral resources of St. 
Martin’s Island please visit:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/304077895_MANAGEMENT_PLAN_FOR_CORAL_RESOURCES_OF_NARIKEL_JINJIRA_St_Martin's_Island

and

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/351195705_Figures_for_Tomascik_1997_St_Martin's_Island_report

Cheers,
Tom