Greetings from the Anambas,
We have just completed our latest Reef Health Monitoring Report and would like to share it with you on the progress that we’ve made so far on our marine conservation program.
To give you some context, Reef Health Monitoring (RHM) activity is part of our marine conservation program and has been regularly held once a year since 2019 in Bawah Island and surrounding areas. The purpose is to evaluate the condition of coral reefs, coral cover, biomass and coral reef fish in those areas.
Based from our assessment published in this report where we compared monitoring results from 2019 with results from 2020 the general outcome shows positive development. The percentage of live coral cover is averaging at 27% meaning it is in the medium category. Medium coral cover with high recovery potential shows that coral reefs are in good-enough condition and possibly in the process of recovering.
Coral reef fish assessment that we did in 2020 shows increases in both population and biomass compared to results from 2019. Numbers of species recorded are 171 species with 28 of them are new discoveries from this year. Tokong ranks number one for optimal coral reef ecosystem while South Lagoon and Setigi are lowest out of the six monitoring locations.
This reef health monitoring activity wouldn’t be possible without the help of Divers Clean Action and Orca Nation who assisted us in data collection on the field and Bawah Reserve who have facilitated and supported our marine conservation activities.
Our best hope is that this report will provide useful and interesting information regarding marine conditions in Anambas and we are always open for any input and suggestions to help improve this report.
Click HERE to see the full report