BLUE FINGERED GARDENING

The British Society of Underwater Photographers Magazine: Summer 2021

by Dan and Jay Shipp

Alessandro steps off his boat onto the wooden jetty on which we await. He greets each of us, six in all, with a handshake and a welcoming smile. We are all part of a volunteer programme run by Alex, to encourage local coral regrowth after the severe damage caused by Cyclone Yasa in late 2020. It was one of the strongest cyclones to have hit Fiji since records began. He outlines what he hopes we can accomplish in the next few hours and goes on to explain some of the techniques that we will be using.
We don our snorkelling gear and enter the water. All about us are smashed up pieces of coral - It's sad to see such devastation to a reef that we've dived on so many times. Alex descends to the bottom, searches amongst the scattered pieces until he finds an appropriate one, and ascends. "This is what we're looking for," he says. 'It's the right size and still alive', he adds. Armed with this knowledge, we begin searching for similar pieces. Alex secures a couple of baskets from the underside of a surfboard and asks us to fill them with the fragments that we have gathered.

We do as instructed, and then all head over to the nursery which consists of several parallel ropes strung between two sturdy stands. We spend a while attaching the coral, making sure that they are evenly spread along each rope line and in the best possible position to regrow and become candidates for permanent replanting.

After we’ve done as many snorkels down to the ropes as our lungs allow, Alex huddles the group for a quick rest and demonstrates the next stage - the technique of securing viable coral pieces directly to the substrate using small balls of concrete.“the concrete needs to be soft enough to mould into cracks but hard enough to stay solid in the water” he explains.“in fact, if you can manage to wedge the coral into gaps in the rocks without concrete, that can work well too”. He goes on to show us that the best way to position coral fragments is actually lying down, rather than upright. This is so you can expose the healthy side – the new growth will emerge upwards from there.

Our first efforts either turn into soup in the water or harden like cricket balls, but we quickly get the hang of it. Soon, we are installing 2 or 3 lumps of concrete on suitable rocky outcrops in about 5 metres of water, then returning with a new lungful of air to carefully position our fragments into the waiting concrete.

It all seems rather ‘bish bash bosh’ but he assures us it works and – at least some of- the results speak for themselves. Because we live only a few hundred yards from the nursery, we can be layman judges of that over the coming months. Even now after just a few weeks we’ve noticed a clear increase in fish populations around the nursery and the coral fragments which have been attached to the rope are healing nicely.

Work done, we call it a day. Alex is very passionate about his quest to restore Fiji's coral reefs. We walk away feeling inspired by his energy and commitment. He is one of a group of people in Fiji dedicating their time to give coral reefs a helping hand - and it's a difficult battle.

In Fiji, the emphasis is on creating nurseries using only thermal tolerant corals and those with a natural resistance to predation by the crown-of-thorn starfish. With a rise in sea temperatures, this sounds like a reasonable strategy. On top of this, village youth groups are being set up and encouraged to participate in these coral regrowth initiatives - a move in the right direction. Of course, coral restoration is only part of the solution. A global response to curbing climate change must be at the top of every countries’ agenda.

Meanwhile, back on land we were happy to see one such initiative set up by the British consulate here in Fiji. They hosted a photography competition with the aim of spreading awareness of our changing climate's detrimental impact on pacific island nations. This is part of the lead up to the 26th UN Climate Change Conference taking place in Glasgow later in 2021.

We both entered, and were delighted to be chosen as finalists, giving us the opportunity to get dressed up and attend the awards night - and then utterly thrilled to both be announced prize winners.

The competition certainly made us think a little more about using our photography to highlight some of the problems facing ecosystems due to climate change

Using our photography to record the efforts of coral gardeners like Alex and bring attention to issues caused by climate change is a rewarding one. So much more so because stories we hear of recent dive trips to exotic locations invariably contain the message "it's not as good as it used to be". Just imagine if we could reverse that. Alex's coral gardening is only a tiny piece in the jigsaw of environmental recovery, as is the photography competition, but it's a start. Will it make a difference? We'll have to see. As the saying goes, desperate times call for desperate measures.

It's hard to predict when borders will open again here in Fiji, but when they do, let's hope that the colourful coral reefs that attract so many tourists, divers and of course, people like us - underwater photographers - will still be here to greet us all.