Tsunami reconstruction bad for reefs
Updated
Many of Asia's coral reefs were badly damaged by the earthquake that triggered the 2004 Asian tsunami but in Indonesia's worst hit province of Aceh, fears that the subsequent tidal wave might have caused the same devastation to underwater reefs as on land turned out to be unfounded.
Now, however, new research presented at the International Coral Reef Symposium underway in Florida shows the post-tsunami reconstruction effort has been bad news for the reefs' survival.
Presenter: Corinne Podger
Speakers: Andrew Baird, a researcher from James Cook University; Yudi Herdiana, of Indonesia's Wildlife Conservation Society
PODGER: In the months following the 2004 tsunami, scientists visited Aceh's reefs, expecting to find them flattened and broken by the tidal surge. To their astonishment and relief, they discovered the coral reefs were comparatively unharmed. Andrew Baird is a researcher from James Cook University in north-east Australia, who's been visiting Aceh for more than 20 years:
BAIRD: The sites at which I had previous data from, there was absolutely no change in coral cover. These sites were in shallow reef areas, on the reef crest, and on the reef crest the corals are very strongly attached, and so in the shallow reef areas, the damage was absolutely trivial, the tsunami had done very little damage at all.
PODGER: However the researchers found that while the tsunami hadn't caused as much damage as expected, Aceh's reefs were nevertheless in poor shape, from decades of net and blast fishing, and from ocean pollution. Yudi Herdiana, of Indonesia's Wildlife Conservation Society, explains:
HERDIANA: The damage from the tsunami is quite patchy, not all the reef was damaged by the tsunami, so the damaged reef in some particular areas, it's mainly caused by previous human activities such as dynamite fishing. For northern Aceh region, the main problem is pollution which comes from the main city, from the Banda Aceh, the capital city of the province, and from the fishing practices in northern Aceh region the main problem is the net fishing because people use nets close to the shallow reefs, and it's damaging the reefs.
PODGER: Here in Florida, Yudi Herdiana and Andrew Baird presented their latest findings on Aceh, which show the reefs have suffered considerably since the tidal wave four years ago. That's partly due to soil pollution, as run-off from tsunami-related erosion and landslides have trickled into the ocean. But it's also a grimly ironic outcome of Aceh's reconstruction and economic recovery:
HERDIANA: Reconstruction is causing more problem because in some area, in southern parts of this region, people used live corals and there's coral mining for construction and rebuildling the houses, because they don't have support from the mainland. It's quite a remote area so the local government from the mainland cannot give support quickly for reconstruction so they just used live coral.
PODGER: There are management programs in place to protect Aceh's reefs, but Dr Herdiana says they've often been more of a hidrance than a help:
HERDIANA: Currently we have two management in place in Aceh. The first is the national government, the natural tourism area, and the other one is the community based management. This is local people working to protect the reefs, and it's been hundreds of years ago, was developed hundreds of years ago by the ancient kingdom of Aceh, but the problem now is that there is no support from the local government in terms of the funding and for them to be able to make an enforcement of any violations.
PODGER: Both scientists have called for better coordination between Indonesia's national and local conservation authorities, the creation of more marine protected areas, and tighter enforcement of conservation policies. Otherwise, they warn jobs and income will suffer, and Aceh's slow road to recovery will take even longer.
