Marine Biology & Sustainability Newsletter BLUESix Senses Laamu & 1 GREEN LAAMU Marine Biology & Sustainability Newsletter November 2019 Maamendhoo students enjoying a snorkeling lesson with the Manta Trust and MUI team. For many it was their first time ever seeing corals underwater Marine Biology & Sustainability Newsletter Six Senses Laamu 2 BLUE CARBON IN LAAMU FIGHTS CLIMATE CHANGE At the start of November we welcomed Dr. Peter Macreadie as a MUI visiting practitioner. Peter is the director of the Blue Carbon Lab at Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia and is world renowned for his expertise in blue carbon. What is blue carbon? In his own words: “Blue carbon is carbon that is captured and stored by the oceans. But the heavy lifting is really done by mangrove forests, seagrass meadows and tidal marshes. They occupy less than 1% of the sea floor, yet they sequester more than half of the ocean’s carbon, and by doing so they help to mitigate climate change.” Peter provided trainings for the MUI team on what blue carbon is, why it is so important and how to measure it. Together Peter and the team took three sediment cores from three mangrove and three adjacent seagrass habitats (Hithadhoo, Maabaidhoo and Gaadhoo), collecting 18 cores in total. The samples have been dried and will be sent to Hawaii for analysis of the amount of carbon present in each habitat. With this information we will get a further understanding of how significant Laamu habitats are for carbon sequestration, adding further justification for their protection. Marine Biology & Sustainability Newsletter Six Senses Laamu 3 TWO MIKES DOUBLE DOWN ON SEAGRASS STUDIES A busy month for visiting We were honoured to have Mike2 lead our first ‘Laamaseelu practitioners, MUI also welcomed Farudhun’ session, a citizen science project based in Laamu (read Dr. Mike Rasheed and Dr. Mike more on page 6). They also hosted a seagrass monitoring workshop van Keulen, two experts in in Male’ with 35 participants, including EIA consultants, ministry seagrass ecology from James representatives, MNU students and resort marine biologists. This Cook University, Australia and has laid the groundwork for a nationwide seagrass monitoring Murdoch University, Australia, methodology, to complement the existing coral reef monitoring respectively. Mike and Mike had a methodology (read more on page 7). busy week at Six Senses including research, training, exploration and community work. During their stay they reviewed our ongoing turtle exclusion cage study (read more on page 4) and circumnavigated Olhuveli island exploring the seagrass meadows. After being contacted by a scientist in Chagos who had tracked a turtle to Laamu, Dr. Rasheed and Dr. van Keulen used an RUV to explore the possible location of a deep-water seagrass meadow. A meadow was not found, but the potential of RUV technology for studying Laamu Atoll was incredible. The Mikes also teamed up with MUI researchers to complete a MarineGeo study at the resort. MarineGeo is a global study by the Smithsonian Institution investigating food- webs within seagrass meadows. In November the MUI team interacted with 23.13% of guests at the resort. An average of 10.83 megafauna were encountered across 155 snorkel and dive excursions with a total of 716 sharks, 520 turtles and 274 rays sighted. Marine Biology & Sustainability Newsletter Six Senses Laamu 4 After assessing the hatchlings Research has estimated that only 1 TURTLE condition, the MUI team released in 1000 hatchlings will survive to the hatchling a short distance reach sexual maturity. This little HATCHLING offshore, in order to reduce the guy had a close call, so fingers chance of the hatchling washing crossed he will be one of the lucky RELEASE back onto the beach. ones! Early in November, an injured green turtle hatchling was spotted on our nesting beach. As all nests at Six Senses Laamu are carefully monitored - and our remaining turtle nests showed no signs of hatching - we determined that the hatchling had most likely washed in from a neighbouring island. The hatchling looked to be the survivor of a crab attack and had suffered an injury to one eye. TURTLE EXCLUSION CAGES Dr. Mike Rasheed and Dr. Mike van Keulen shared their seagrass monitoring expertise with the team by consulting on MUI’s turtle exclusion cage project. Together, they were able to further develop and refine the project methodology. The purpose of a turtle exclusion cage is to prevent turtles from grazing an area of seagrass, but allow fish and invertebrates to swim through freely. Every three months, the percentage cover and canopy height of seagrass, both inside and outside of the cages, will be recorded. The difference between seagrass density inside and outside of the cage will reveal how much of an effect turtle grazing has on our seagrass meadows. The cages will be in-situ for 12 months and marked with ‘MUI Research Equipment’ tags. Marine Biology & Sustainability Newsletter Six Senses Laamu 5 COMMUNITY SNORKELLING WITH MANTA TRUST The Manta Trust team organized snorkelling sessions for 45 kids in Laamu. With the help of the entire Maldives Underwater Initiative team, MNDF and teachers, they had a great time showing kids the seagrass beds and coral reefs in their own backyard! For many of the kids, this was their very first experience with snorkelling and seeing the habitats that we are working to better understand and protect in Laamu. We’ve taken many kids snorkelling in the past but these sessions were a bit different as it was the first time we were using the Mares gear donated to the schools in trade fisheries in Laamu, the Manta Trust was able to September. Through a generous grant from Blueyou, purchase 195 sets of snorkelling equipment (15 sets one of Six Senses Laamu’s partners working on fair for each school in Laamu) which was distributed to the students at the Laamafaru festival. Each school now has gear that can be loaned to students and our hope is that more kids will have access to the ocean on a regular basis. The equipment is very adjustable, and all kids have access to gear which fits, giving them the confidence they need to explore! We’re looking forward to more community snorkelling sessions in the coming year! Thank you to Blueyou and Mares for making this donation possible! LEARNING MORE ABOUT MANTAS FROM THE COMMUNITY The team has been reaching out to boat crew and known to the atoll. Her name is Faagati and she was fishermen over the past year to encourage them enjoying the plankton that had accumulated over to report sightings of surface feeding mantas. In the reef edge. Her fast speed made keeping up with November, we received multiple reports of feeding her challenging but it was a rewarding snorkel with mantas near the local island of Gan and one near some great views of a surface feeding manta! Hithadhoo. The team is very grateful for all of the reports from A few lucky guests were able to join us for the community and this information will help them snorkelling with the manta near Hithadhoo and we better understand habitat usage throughout Laamu. were surprised to see one of the rarer individuals Marine Biology & Sustainability Newsletter Six Senses Laamu 6 ‘LAAMASEELU FARUDHUN’ CITIZEN SCIENCE PROGRAM BLUE, in partnership with Six the participants had the chance to explore a ‘Laamaseelu Farudhun’ Senses Laamu, has launched an lush seagrass meadow on Gan island. They translates in Dhivehi to exciting programme to strengthen were trained on seagrass survey methods ‘exemplary citizen’. the capacity of Laamu Atoll which they could duplicate at their own citizens to monitor their coral island. reefs, mangroves and seagrass meadows. The programme will BLUE and MUI hope that with the help run as a series of sessions aimed of these exemplary citizens, data can at different community groups, be collected from all islands to better and will help communities to understand the status of seagrass in Laamu. understand and take ownership of their marine resources. The first session of the program, ‘Seagrass citizen science workshop’, was held at Villa College Gan Campus last month. 18 participants from 9 different islands, representing different NGOs, youth groups and the general public attended the one- day workshop. The workshop was delivered by our visiting practitioners, Mike and Mike. For the practical session Marine Biology & Sustainability Newsletter Six Senses Laamu 7 THE FINAL MALDIVES RESILIENT REEFS SEMINAR OF 2019 The Maldives Resilient The series welcomed international On November 28, 2019, the seventh Reefs Seminar Series experts from various fields of marine and the last seminar of 2019 kicked off in February conservation to host seven talks on was hosted at the MNU central 2019 to build capacity for engaging topics, including seagrass Auditorium in Male’, coming back conservation and marine protection, sustainable tourism, to the topic the seminar series kicked resource management at spawning aggregations, and blue off with, seagrass. 30 members the national level. carbon. from different NGOs, government officials, EIA consultants, tour operators, MNU students and our #ProtectMaldivesSeagrass campaign partner resorts were trained on three different levels of seagrass monitoring which could be brought together in to a uniform assessment and scoring system. Participants were keen to join a nationwide monitoring network using the proposed protocols. Within the next few weeks, MUI and BLUE will be working together withnational and international stakeholders to finalize the monitoring methods for nationwide data collection. KALAIDHOO SCHOOL REEF CHECK COURSE At Laamafaru Festival 2019, Kalaidhoo school won a Discover Reef Check course for their amazing #LaamuStory stage performance. BLUE visited the school to conduct the two- day course for 28 students from grades 6 to 9.