Enticing World

Nearly 60 per cent of the world's coral reefs are threatened by human activities, and in South East Asia the risk factor is a further 20 per cent higher, according to
a survey by the World Conservation Monitoring Centre.

The two-year study, whose partner founders include the World Wide Fund for Nature and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), draws upon information from 800 sites provided by scientists
from several countries.

A digital map of the all the planet's reefs, which cover about 255,000 square kilometres, an area just larger than the United Kingdom, is now available in an atlas with photographs.

Damage leading to degradation and eventual destruction of reefs, some of which scientists believe are more than two million years old, is caused principally by:

* coastal development

* overfishing, particularly that involving the use of explosives and cyanide

* and shore and ship pollution.

While, globally, more than 400 marine parks, sanctuaries and reserves contain reefs, most are very small and 40 of the 109 countries with coral resources are without protected areas.

Against this familiar litany of bleak environmental forecasts, London-based Coral Cay Conservation (CCC), which functions both as an educational charitable trust and an expedition company sending
volunteers to catalogue the biodiversity of marine environments, is among the organisations fighting back.

Since 1986, the CCC has operated in Belize, lndonesia and the Philippines at the invitation of partner state hosts and is now in discussions on offering services to counterparts in Egypt, Mauritius
and the Seychelles.

On some expeditions volunteers help local people engaged in forestry replanting, because deforestation is among the factors leading to major reef destruction, particularly in Borneo, where acidic ash
from the burning forests of Kalimantan has washed down rivers on to coastal reefs, 94 per cent of which have suffered some degree of damage.

Education programmes involving coastal communities carried out with CCC help to emphasis the value of reefs as habitats for substantial fish yields, protection from coastal erosion and revenues from
managed tourism and `bioprospecting' · the search for genetic material within the tissues of reef creatures with potential curative uses as tumour inhibitors and antibiotics. Coral has also been used
in bone grafts.

The idea of forming a company to harness the enthusiasm and talent of sports divers for marine surveys arose from a successful university expedition to Belize. Since then several thousand CCC
volunteers, paying their own expenses, have joined expeditions to the Caribbean and Asia-Pacific regions.

Regular recruitment briefings are held at CCC's south London headquarters where on a possibly miserable rainy day, slides of sun-drenched coral ecosystems suggest an enticing world of beauty and
escape. But volunteers are reminded that they will be working from dawn to dusk on an expedition rather than a holiday.

Alex Page, Coral Cay's director, explained that the first week on site is devoted to training in effective fieldwork. Subjects covered include cultural awareness, equipment operation, diving
regulations and identification of marine organisms.

Volunteers are shown how to distinguish as many as 80 species of fish and 40 species of corals, in addition to algae and invertebrates.

Divers record their findings using waterproof notebooks while swimming along lines drawn up from preliminary aerial reconnaissance. A UNDP-approved method for obtaining semi-quantitative baseline
information is employed.

When combined with socio-economic and cultural data collected by non-divers it can be registered to base maps within geographical information systems (GIS) for use by decision makers in host
countries planning the management and sustainable development of coastal resources.

Divers operating in pairs can record in waterproof notebooks the physical characteristics and species they encounter while swimming from deep water to the shallows. Back at base camp, information is
transferred on to recording forms for eventual transfer into the GlS database.

While CCC is not involved in the highly specialised work of bioprospecting, its data may assist host countries planning to develop such a facility.

Full-time expedition science staff also contribute papers to journals. CCC Science Coordinator Alastair Harborne recently completed a study of the accuracy and consistency of the data collected by
expedition participants.

Data collected by CCC volunteers has played a part in securing World Heritage Site status for seven marine protected areas within the 250-kilometre-long (155-mile-long) Belize barrier reef, the
largest in the western hemisphere.

Volunteers are systematically exploring and surveying the forests, lagoons and reefs throughout the 350 square kilometres of the Turneffe Atoll area off Belize for which a management plan is being
devised. More than 200 fish species have been identified.

CCC entered Borneo for the first time from January to April last year and began a survey at Sangata, East Kalimantan, where they hope to return this year to establish baseline survey sites and help
with education programmes in schools there.

lndonesia, which has one-eighth of the world's coral reefs and where most of the population rely upon fish for their daily protein intake, faces a critical situation mainly from pollution,
overfishing and sedimentation.

In the Philippines where the population has made huge demands on natural resources, according to some estimates about 90 per cent of the reefs is dead or deteriorating as a result of pollution,
overfishing and deforestation. Efforts are focused on Danjugan and Cagdanao islands where CCC and Filipino volunteers are collecting data for a marine reserve and wildlife sanctuary.

Environmentalist compare coral reefs to rainforests in that they are similarly threatened with the loss of biodiversity before the sustainable uses of their resources have been fully identified.