seacology » 12pm - Jul 12, 2010

Manado Tua Island is a towering extinct volcano fringed with picturesque reef drop-offs and capped with a rainforest at its summit. The island's 3,200 inhabitants form a very tightly-knit community of farmers and fishermen who cling tenaciously to their Sangir cultural traditions. Large sections of Manado Tua's coral reef have been reduced to rubble fields due to blast fishing activities that took place over a decade ago. With Seacology's assistance, Manado Tua villagers have installed EcoReef modules, snowflake-shaped ceramic modules that are designed to mimic branching corals, providing shelter to fish and a surface for larval corals to build a new reef. In return, villagers have expanded their current "no-take" reef zones to include five acres of reef containing the EcoReef modules. USAID's Natural Resources Management Project and dive operators from the North Sulawesi Watersports Association did all the coordination and installation of EcoReefs for this project.

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