Under pressure: Fujairah divers' coral project fights climate damage - As-salamu alaykum
As-salamu alaykum - A community effort to restore our marine life is showing results, but an expert warned more action is needed to reduce pollution's harm to the UAE’s coral reefs.
During the Covid-19 lockdown, Marine Owen, co-owner of Freestyle Divers, realised action couldn’t wait any longer to try and offset climate change effects. “When I went for the first dive after the lockdown and saw how beautiful the water was, I felt it deeply - we as humans are harming the environment,” she said.
After the lockdown the visibility at the Fujairah dive site was incredible, with many more fish than usual - a clear sign of how human activity changes the sea. I joined volunteers and the team for a dive to a coral nursery about 4km south of Dibba Rock to see their work firsthand.
The corals planted at that site are a small part of Freestyle Divers’ target to plant 24,000 corals this year. They have been running Project REEFrame since 2021 to build healthy natural habitats where reefs wouldn’t form naturally because there aren’t enough rocky outcrops.
On the day I joined, nine divers helped start a new nursery and taught volunteers how to attach coral fragments correctly to a metal frame. Divers secure the submerged steel frame to an artificial reef structure. The day before they had collected naturally broken coral and kept it underwater to prevent drying, so the planting had to be quick.
“We had the right people, resources, technology and equipment, and we could make it happen,” said Venkatasubramanian Hariharan, managing director of Canon Middle East & Turkey, which began a two-year partnership to support the project. “We’ll be happy that the 63 corals tied to the frame today will grow and contribute - that’s the goal.”
Coral reefs offer vital shelter for marine life and support the economy through diving tourism, Ms Owen added.
While coral damage from climate change is a global problem, the Middle East also faces local issues, said Darryl Owen, co-owner and CEO of Freestyle Divers. The Environment Agency - Abu Dhabi notes human activities are dangerous to reefs and estimates half of corals have been lost in the past 30 years.
“We’d love to restore corals on the west coast, but sediment pollution is a big problem,” he said. “Decades of construction have created dust and dredging has added silt to the sea floor. The reef growth system is meant to help hold multiple ecosystems, but excessive sediment makes it hard for reefs to survive.”
Restoring reefs is a long-term task, but community work like this nursery gives hope that with care and continued effort we can help protect Allah’s creation for future generations.
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