Reef Restoration Programme

The Coral Reef Restoration Program was initiated in August 1997 to experimentally restore degraded Coral reefs in Sri Lanka; a primary site was established at the Rumassala coral reef in the South Coast of Sri Lanka.  The program envisaged developing low-tech widely applicable reef restoration techniques to reduce human impacts on coastal coral reefs, increase the survival of available coral, speed the restoration of reefs and experimentation with coral propagation methodologies including maintenance of coral nurseries. During the past nine years of the program the RRRP made significant achievements in the pioneering field of coral propagation and reef restoration. These include the adoption of  “Reef keeping” as a regular program to control physical pollution on the reef, re-establishment of broken corals to increase survival and monitoring and experimentation with management of reef infesting marine organisms.  The program has the best success rate in Sri Lanka in maintenance of coral nurseries with high reef-cover restoration success and development of underwater coral cementing techniques.

The Project was initiated in response to damage caused to sections of the Rumassala reef by a storm and subsequent loss of coral cover to an invasive species of Ascidian on the reef. The Project sought methods to restore damaged coral areas and manage reef infestations. The initial experiments involved establishing guidelines for maintenance of reef health through reef cleaning and maintenance (Reef Keeper program) and resettlement of broken and displaced coral material into the reef.  Ways of accelerating the rate of re-colonization of reef substrates was also experimented with using settlement patterns that allowed fasted restoration of coral cover.

The main challenges facing the team was re-attachment of coral fragments onto the reef to allow fast natural re-cementing / re-integration to the reef, The techniques of using cement mixtures underwater was perfected in 2001 and provided a marked advantage over the older wire /plastic-tie systems in providing instant re-integration of coral on to the reef with no loss of coral material. The system had an added advantage that the visual harmony of the reef is maintained as the cement base is overgrown with reef fouling organisms within a couple of weeks. The system also allowed setting more corals in less time than with earlier systems.

A monitoring program was set up to study the occurrence of invasive organisms and coral diseases on the reef. Experimentation was carried out in reducing the damage caused by the invasive organisms to coral and in controlling population explosions.

As invasive species caused loss of newly settled corals and small coral fragments on the reef. Experiments were carried out in setting up elevated coral nurseries on to which coral fragments could be transferred before re-settlement on the reef. Different materials and structures were tested for durability and tolerance to invasions and Storms.

The El-nino induced Coral bleaching event of 1998 caused massive coral death on the reef reducing the Live coral cover from >70% to <20%. The Coral bleaching mortality event exterminated several dominant coral species on the reef thus changing the ecology and structure of the reef in addition to the loss of coral.  The experience gained on the previous years proved a significant advantage in undertaking the challenge of restoring the coral cover on the reef. The challenges facing the team in restoring the reef included.

Newly replanted corals