Notes on a Reef Assessment Expedition

By Sheryll Tesch, CRMP

How do you call doing two dives and a snorkel a day for three weeks? I call it a diver’s ultimate dream, but the expedition that allowed me to live that dream was, in fact, serious business and not quite so whimsical.

Last April 6-25, 2001, I, along with 18 volunteers from the United States, England and Indonesia and seven colleagues from the Sulu Fund for Marine Conservation Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization focused on coral reef marine protected area management, and Coastal Resource Management Project, joined an Earthwatch Institute-supported dive expedition in Batangas to collect data for important ongoing conservation projects in the area.

Getting ready for another dive

For three weeks, we did our two-dives-and-a-snorkel-a-day to assess different dive sites in the Maricaban Strait and Balayan Bay areas of Batangas. Dividing our group into two teams – Team One with six volunteers and Team Two with 11 volunteers – we prodded ourselves on from seven in the morning to six in the evening and collected all-important information on coral reef quality, while occasionally battling strong currents, noting some discouraging findings, and even coping with an injury (volunteer Marilyn Sobrick was diagnosed with a collapsed lung after diving with a lung infection).

Team 2 taking a break for a photo shoot

All told, we visited 10 sites. Four sites – Twin Rocks, Arthur’s Rock, Dive and Trek, and Cathedral Reef – had been declared by municipal ordinance as marine protected areas (MPAs) and two – Sombrero Island and Pulang Bali – were close to becoming MPAs. Sombrero Island and Pulang Buli, as well as the other sites (Sepoc Point, Layag-layag, White Sand, and White House), were all popular dive sites frequented by both local and international tourists.

In a huddle to discuss data test

It was heartening to see how efforts toward conservation and effective reef management had paid off at Twin Rocks, Dive and Trek and Arthur’s Rock, which showed a stable living coral substrate as well as a high fish species diversity and abundance. Apparently, destructive and illegal fishing practices had been mostly eliminated from the area, but persisting problems, including overfishing, increasing shoreline development, and pollution from solid wastes, posed a major threat to the area’s reefs. Also, we noted a few problems that must be address to improve sanctuary management: the absence of anchor buoys, the lack of prominent signs of sanctuary maps and rules, and a relatively low level of awareness of tourists and the local community about reef conservation.

Visiting the community's Earth Day exhibit

Because the research period coincided with other activities such as the Holy Week and Earth Day, the trip was made more interesting with various visitors and events. The barangay (village) of Sto. Tomas  held an art contest among its community members, with Team One acting as judges for each art category and Team Two presenting the trophies and prizes to the winners of each category a week after the contest, and dancing during the barangay’s Earth Day celebrations.

I will never forget the late nights of games, after dinner laughs and underwater footage by Mark Copley, the constant taunting of Indonesian volunteer Enny of staff member Brian Giles, the hospitality of Arthur Abrigonda’s family and staff at Arthur’s Resort, the mothering of Sulu Fund’s Vangie White, and the much needed and consistent encouragement of CRMP deputy chief of party and expedition leader Alan White.

I will, of course, always treasure the thought that, in my own small way, I contributed to the reef conservation effort. The information about coral reef quality has been collated, analyzed and correlated to management efforts, human impacts and environmental factors that we noted in the area. A comprehensive report on the results of the expedition is now available from Sulu Fund. This will serve as input to management efforts not only by Sulu Fund, who has a reef conservation project in Batangas, but other organizations such as The World Wide Fund for Nature, who can use the data to validate the results of their ongoing conservation project, and resort owners and the two municipal governments, who are all exerting efforts in participatory reef conservation through the establishment of marine protected areas and can use the data to see progress and gaps in their work.

For more information or copies of the report, address all communications  to The Sulu Fund for Marine Conservation Foundation, Inc., No. 2 Topaz Street, St. Michael Village, Banilad, Cebu City, Philippines; or Coastal Resource Management Project, 5^th Floor, CIFC Tower, North Reclamation, Cebu City, Philippines, Tel. 6332-232-1821 or 1822 or 6332-231-1521, Fax 6332-232-1825, E-mail sulufund@mozcom.com or awhite@mozcom.com

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