Topic covered:
Conservation related issues.
Coral Rehab Programme
What to study?
For prelims and mains: coral bleaching- causes, effect and various ways to restore.
Why in News? The National Centre for Coastal Research’s (NCCR) proposal of dropping ‘melted plastic rocks or slabs’ on the seabed for growing coral reefs and address the problem of disposal of plastic waste has drawn criticism from the Gulf of Mannar (GoM) Marine National Park, which has been implementing coral rehabilitation programme since 2002.
What’s the issue?
- The NCCR suggested that plastic waste materials could simply be wound around as hard substrates as a way of disposing of them and help build coral colonies.
- Therefore, researchers have expressed apprehensions that the NCCR’s ‘innovative idea’ for the growth of marine organisms like algae for coral reefs building would destroy the existing coral reef colonies.
- Corals in the GoM were already stressed and bleached under climate change and the NCCR’s idea would turn the reefs into graveyards.
About the Coral Rehabilitation Programme:
- The GoM Marine National Park has been implementing the corral rehabilitation programme since 2002.
- It has so far covered eight sq km areas in GoM region, where coral reefs suffered bleaching and degradation due to climate change and high temperature.
- The program employs ‘concrete frame slabs’ method.
- Corals would start growing in 60 days using the concrete frames as sub-state. The acropora coral species grow by 10 to 12 cm per year on these slabs.
Sources: the Hindu.
