|
How glad I am that I had the
opportunity to join the Indies Trader on this
leg to do Reef Check surveys in Burma! The crew
of the boat was beautiful people and let me gain
hope. Each one of them loves the ocean and they
are all dedicated to doing something for the
protection of the oceans - one way or the other.
I received a mail on Thursday Jan 25.2001
telling me I could join an expedition on the
"cult-ship" The Indies Trader, to
Burma of all places! Two days later I sat in the
plane - you just can't miss an opportunity like
this! Nobody I know has ever done any surveys on
Burmese reefs. The Mergui archipelago is slowly
opening up to tourism, and the sooner we get
baseline data, the better.
THE CORAL REEFS
In brief I can say that the corals
were in relatively good health on
the reefs we saw of the Mergui
Archipelago. I was astonished to
see that there were so many living
coral considering that the
visibility was so low (5-10m /
11-33ft).
Interestingly enough the offshore
islands, where the water is
clearer, there were no real coral
reefs. There were only few corals
and essentially most of the rocks
were barren. Of course we had fun
diving, there were loads of little
things to be seen. In some caves
there were many daisy corals (Tubastrea
sp.) and nudibranchs. Probably the
offshore reefs are exposed to too
many waves during the Southwest
monsoon. |
|
|
It was in the murky water of
the nearshore islands that we
found reefs. This is astonishing
because Coral reefs generally
prefer clear waters with low
nutrient levels. These corals must
have adapted over hundreds of
years to the (natural) high influx
of sediment from the many rivers
in the area. Arriving at our first
Reef Check site we were first
disappointed, because we couldn't
see any reef, let alone the
bottom, which was less than 5m
deep from the boat, the water was
so murky. We dived anyway, finned
around in the sand for a while
until we eventually hit a coral
reef. And it was a surprise! It
was one of those reefs, which you
first think is 'lousy' because the
visibility is so low: it actually
went down to less than 5m / 17ft
during the dive. We didn't find
any big fish and except for loads
of sea urchins, there were few
other invertebrates. But the
corals!! A-ma-zing. Enormous
bommies (Porites), of several
meters width and up to 4m high!
Those corals have been sitting
here, alive, for centuries! But
other corals too were in unusually
good condition; live coral
coverage was almost 75% - which is
extremely good.
FISHING
Unfortunately, however, as in so
many areas of the world, the reefs
were greatly overfished. Large
fish as well as invertebrates such
as lobsters or sea cucumbers were
rare. They are not only fished by
Burmese fishermen but also from
boats coming in from other
countries. At night, there were
sometimes so many fishing boats
with their light on in the
horizon; we could barely count
them! |
We need to find solutions in
a world, in which so many people want to eat, if
we want to effectively protect coral reefs. Reef
Check is the first step to this protection, and
I am glad we have the opportunity to start this
process in Burma, and I am grateful to
Quiksilver for sponsoring the first Reef Check
surveys in this region.
TOURISM
There is still very little tourism in Burma, but
more and more people are learning to appreciate
this far off place. The Mergui Archipelago and
southern Burma are so cut off from the rest of
Burma and Thailand, that it is one of the very
few areas of the world where you still see
virgin forests, where there are wild cats and
much more nature than humans. Sadly enough
though you can already see the negative side
effects of tourism in the harbor of Kaw Thuong,
where you can buy furs of wild cats on the
street. You can also buy a variety of shells as
well as whole dead turtles on the pavement.
This is sad. You can not only blame those who
sell these things, trying to make a living. We
educate them, that this is not good, but as long
as people buy these things, there will be others
willing to do these atrocities. We CAN change
this; it is in the hands of tourists, of US to
change this. It is up to every single one of us,
NOT to buy these "souvenirs", and to
tell the vendors that we don't approve of this.
You would be surprised how much influence the
tourist has on this behavior.
MATING SQUID!
One of the most amazing dives we
had in Burma was at an offshore
rocky island, where there was no
coral reef. But we found 3 cuttle
fish mating. One big female, her
mate who was perhaps half her size
and a second male: "the
intruder". She regularly
stretched out her arms (all eight
of them) all the way under a ledge
where she laid her eggs.
She would regularly pull them back
and just sit there for a while,
arms all curled in. After a rest
she would do it again, seemingly
oblivious to what the two males
were up to around her. The smaller
of the 2 males, was her mate and
would hover right beside her;
always looking back to the other
male darting towards the
competitor if he dared come too
close. The intruder had a hard
time trying to get near the
female. Every now and then he
would attack by flaring out all
his arms, which would flash their
patterns at the mate and they
would have a "fingerfight" |
|
|