ECOTOURISM CAN HELP SAVE INDONESIA’S CORAL REEFS

Tom Goreau

Scientific Advisor, Biorock Indonesia

President, Global Coral Reef Alliance

2018 GLOBAL ECO ASIA-PACIFIC TOURISM CONFERENCE

Townsville

November 26 2018

INDONESIALargest area of coral reefs in the world.

World centre of marine biodiversity.

17,000 islands, 270 million people.

Around 95% of reefs destroyed, damaged, or degraded.

Causes: blast fishing, global warming, sewage runoff, soil erosion, agricultural chemicals, new marine diseases, unsustainable tourism.

BIOROCK INDONESIA& GLOBAL CORAL REEF ALLIANCE

Have built around 400 Biorock reefs in Indonesia and around 100 across the Caribbean, Pacific, Indian Ocean and South East Asia.

Held around 20 Biorock Training Workshops.

Restored reefs where there was no natural recovery.

Kept whole reefs alive during severe high temperature bleaching events that killed more than 95% of corals on nearby reefs.

Restored coastal fisheries.

Grown back severely eroded beaches naturally at record rates.

BIOROCK TECHNOLOGY

The only method of reef restoration that greatly increases settlement, growth rates, survival, and resistance to extreme high temperature, sediment, and pollution stress.

Works for corals and all marine animals and plants.

Biorock allows us to keep entire ecosystems alive when they would die from severe stress, and restore them where there is no natural recovery.

All other methods are doomed to fail as global warming and pollution increase.

PEMUTERAN, BALI2000

~1% live coral

2010

~99% live coral

4 YEAR OLD BIOROCK REEF, PEMUTERAN, BALI

4 YEAR OLD BIOROCK REEF, PEMUTERAN, BALI

RAPID RESTORATION OF SEVERELY ERODED BEACH, SULAWESI, INDONESIA

Before Before

After. Same building and tree. 80% of beach growth took place

In just three months, and hascontinued ever since.

Yayasan Karang Lestari (Indonesian Protected

Coral Foundation) specially honored at UN Oceans Conference for turning environmental disaster into economic

opportunity by restoring their coral reefs, fisheries,

and tourism resources through community-

managed Biorock reef restoration projects.

Awarded UNDP Equator Award for Community

Based Development and Special Award for Oceans and Coastal Management

Empowered lives.

Resilient nations.

8 June 2017

6:30pm – 8:30pm

UN Delegates Dining Room

UN Conference Building

4 th Floor

Please RSVP t o

ht t ps:/ / localact ionglobalimpact .eventbrit e.com

In celebrat ion of World Oceans Day at t he UN Ocean Conference,

you are cordially invit ed to a high-level event and recept ion on

Local Act ion, Global Impact

UNDP SPONSORED COMMUNITY RESTORATION TRAINING IN VANUATU FOR A FISHING VILLAGE

WHOSE REEF WAS DREDGED FOR AN AIPORT IN 1943 AND NEVER RECOVERED

TRAINING THE NEXT GENERATION TO REGENERATE THEIR REEF FISHERIES,

VANUATU, 2016

BIOROCK INDONESIA RESULTS DUE TO AN EXCEPTIONAL TEAM

EFFORT

Agung PranaBalinese ecotourism pioneer

Oka Dwi Prihatmoko, Putu Catra, BagusMantra, Made Gunaksa, Rani Morrow-Wuigk,

Komang Astika, Kadek Astawan

Paulus Prong, Ricky Soerapoetra, KomangAstika, Arif Havas Oegroseno, Prawita

Tasya Karissa, & Ramadian Bachtiar

BIOROCK TEAM SAVING THE LAST REEFS IN AMBON BAY

Tom Goreau, Narayana Dodge, & Wolf Hilbertz

UNSUSTAINABLE TOURISM

Every tropical coastal area is counting on tourism for their economic future.

Most hotels have to take their guests hours by boat to see a reef because their own reef is dead.

Almost all are lying about the condition of the reefs because their own dive shops never saw the reefs when they were in their prime.

All are killing the goose that laid the golden egg!

UNSUSTAINABLE TOURISM

Every tropical shore tourist area in the world is killing their reefs through short sighted mismanagement.

The effects of global warming and global sea level rise have barely begun and will get much worse unless the world takes immediate action to reduce CO2 in the atmosphere and recycle their sewage nutrients on land.

For each reef we save, we are losing ten thousand!

Pemuteran in Bali, Gili Trawangan in Lombok, and Pulau Gangga Dive Resort in Sulawesi are the onlyhotels in the world restoring their reefs with modern and effective methods, because of the exceptionally responsible values of their owners.

Coral fragmentation and gardening methods used elsewhere are doomed to long term failure.

Until hotels everywhere are legally mandated to restore their dead reefs, that they killed themselves, there will be no real progress.

The very first reef in the world to be studied by a diving scientist, Prof. Tom Goreau, my father, were killed right afterwards.

The reefs were dredged for landfill to create land for hotels in Ocho Rios, Jamaica.

Photographs of me diving on Ocho Rios reefs in January 1957 taken by my father, shortly before they were killed:

Fritz Goreau, my grandfather, took the first underwater and aerial photographs of the Great Barrier Reef in 1950

THEY CAN’T SAY WE DIDN’T WARN THEM:20 YEARS AGO TODAY IN TOWNSVILLE

I’m an old man who has spent all my life telling people why their reefs are dying. I’m sick of wasting time, because no one is listening.All I want to do is grow corals.Almost no place will let us!

We’ve shown large scale regeneration of coral reefs, biodiversity, fisheries, and beaches can be done!Almost nobody has the will to do so on a large scale until we have intelligent, informed political leadership and funding.

For more information:

www.biorock-indonesia.com

www.globalcoral.org

goreau@globalcoral.org

http://www.globalcoral.org/spectacular-biorock-coral-growth-videos/

http://www.globalcoral.org/biorock-electric-coral-reefs-survive-severe-hurricanes-little-no-damage/