Care is at the heart of everything we do at Atlantis; Care for our guests, our teams, our communities, our oceans, and our reefs.
Image by Virginia Salzedo
Coral Reefs are a critical component of life in the ocean. Scientists estimate that 25 percent of all marine species live in and around coral reefs, making them one of the most diverse habitats in the world. Unfortunately they face many risks, such as climate change, unsustainable fishing, pollution, damage from boat/people, invasive species… A detailed research led by the University of British Columbia and published in the journal One Earth in September 2021 sadly indicated that coral reefs have declined by over half since the 1950s.
Understanding the key role of coral reefs and the threats they face, Atlantis Dive Resorts teamed up with three NGOs, with Coral Restoration Foundation™, The Living Planet Aquarium, and The Mead Foundation, to setup the largest coral nursery in Dauin.
In the Philippines, coral reefs are one of the most vivid in the world and they are bursting with life. The idea of the coral nursery in Dauin was to increase the reef area to provide naturally sheltered habitats for our unique marine life. To do so, coral trees were set up near the San Miguel Marine Protected Area, less than 2 minutes away by boat from the Atlantis Dumaguete resort.
That area is rich in marine life; San Miguel North is mostly sandy and home to all the muck critters that divers love. San Miguel South, nicknamed “clown fish city” by many, combines healthy reefs with colourful anemones inhabited by clownfish, shrimps and crabs. Jawfish, ribbon eels, mantis shrimps, banded snakes, and turtles are also regularly seen in the area.
Since the first coral tree was set up in mid-2020, the Atlantis Coral Tree/ Reef Restoration Project has been on a roll thanks to the support of our partner NGOs and thanks to our guests. Indeed, our guests are invited to contribute to the ongoing maintenance of the trees and to help collect data to monitor the growth of the coral fragments.
We currently have 4 coral trees that are 80% populated with Acropora and Pocillopora coral fragments. The sizes of the fragments now range from 15cm to 30cm; we re-fragment the larger ones to make sure that we populate our coral trees with new pieces that are viable. On average, we do 3-4 dives on the trees per month with the Atlantis Dive Ambassadors and volunteer guests to gather photographic data, re-fragment and populate the trees, and clean them. Thankfully they do get some help from rabbitfishes and surgeonfishes who nibble on the algae growing on the trees. This work is essential but also fun. More often than not, the divers end up doing a longer dive than planned because they get distracted by a school of razorfishes and other critters like nudibranchs, flamboyant cuttlefishes, and ghost pipefishes.
We recently suffered damage to a couple of our coral trees due to entanglement with fishing gear since the trees are currently located outside the Marine Protected Area. Fortunately we were able to save most of the coral fragments. We are now planning to relocate the coral trees to a suitable area inside the San Miguel Marine Protected Area to avoid future entanglement. We are also looking for a suitable spot in the nearby protected reef for outplanting as it will only be a matter of time before the coral fragments grow too large and we run out of space on our coral trees.
We would like to thank with Coral Restoration Foundation™, The Mead Foundation, The Loveland Living Planet Aquarium and our guests for their continued support in this endeavor.
For more information please visit the coral nursery page on our website, or visit our Atlantis Cares to see all our outreach efforts!
