Mooring Buoy Planning Guide Buoy Weight Poly Rope Eye Bolt Acknowledgments The Project AWARE Foundation and PADI International Resort Association (PIRA) have worked to develop this booklet on mooring buoys to address some of the issues relating to the planning, installation and maintenance of a mooring buoy program. The following pages are excerpts and/or complete documents from many sources and contributors. We wish to express gratittude to the leaders and experts in their fields, for their time and contributions to future mooring buoy programs around the world, and to all who contributed in one way or another. A special “thanks” goes out to Athline Clark, John and Judy Halas, Center for Marine Conservation, David Merrill and Jeff Fisher for their contributions to this document. An additonal “thanks” goes out to Joy Zuehls, Jeanne Bryant, Dail Schroeder, Joe De La Torre, Greg Beatty and Kelsey of PADI Americas for their hard work on the production, designs, illustrations and typography of this document. Mooring Buoy Planning Guide Published by International PADI, Inc. 30151 Tomas Street Rancho Santa Margarita, CA 92688-2125 PRODUCT NO. 19300 (Rev. 3/05) Version 1.2 © International PADI, Inc. 1996-2005 All right reserved. Introduction It is estimated that 40 percent of the world’s coral reefs are likely to seriously degrade, perhaps even beyond recovery, by the year 2015. Population increase in coastal areas adjacent to reefs, waste disposal, pollution, sedimentation, overfishing, coral mining, tourism and curio collection all damage coral reefs. These are serious problems with complex solutions. Other problems, serious but smaller in scale, also face the reefs. Anchors, for example, pose a threat that can easily be seen by recreational divers: they simply rip coral reefs apart. Deter- mined individuals and organized local groups can help solve this and similar problems. Since the early 1970s, pioneering members of the dive community, whose livelihoods depend on the quality of the reefs in their area, have championed the installation and use of mooring buoys to lessen the harmaful effects of anchors on coral reefs. Over the years the movement has gathered momentum and is now widely accepted as an effective solution to one aspect of coral reef degradation. The mooring buoy concept is simple: install a mooring buoy close to or over a site where boats traditionally anchor. Instead of anchoring, boat users tie off to the mooring and this lessens damage. Mooring buoys can also be used as an ongoing aid to coral reef conservation. They may be used to zone an area for a particular activity and help avoid conflicts between, for example, fishermen and divers. If an area is being overused, moorings can easily be removed, placed elsewhere, and replaced at the original site when it has had adequate recovery time. Installing mooring buoys requires professional expertise at all phases of project planning and implementa- tion. Several factos must be considered and in many situations, the scope of the project will demand cooperative effort between relevant government agencies and interested parties. The anticipated use of the project site determines the number, location and type of moorings deployed. Funding for installation and ongoing mainte- nance, a crucial element of any mooring buoy system, must be organized. Educational programs must be undertaken to ensure that private users understand what the buoys are for and adequate arrangements for enforcement of the project or site regulations need to be in place. Despite the effort involved in a mooring buoy planning and installation project, the benefits far outweigh the work involved. Mooring buoy projects are firmly fixed as a healthy element in the future of the world’s coral reefs. This booklet can be used as a valuable tool when developing a mooring buoy program. It outlines the components that need to be considered when taking on such a project.We hope that you will use this booklet as a guideline in initiating the process of mooring installations. Table of Contents Section I: The Importance of Coral Reefs Section II: Types of Mooring Buoy Systems Section III: The Benefits of Mooring Buoys Section IV: Management and Liability Considerations Section V: Case Studies of Mooring Buoy Programs Section VI: Getting Started on a Mooring Buoy Project of Your Own Section I The Importance of Coral Reefs Overview In this section you will find an introduction to the threats facing the aquatic ecosystem, specifically the coral reefs. A brief summary of the importance of the coral reefs and the interactions between people and corals will also be covered in this section. Contributions Reefs at Risk, coral reefs, human use and climate change, a programme of action, Oct. 1993. Contents 1. A worldwide threat of ecological collapse 2. The living reef 3. People and corals 4. The threats and the causes 1-1 HEAVY BRANCHING CORALS Reef at Risk BRANCHING AND PLATE CORALS SEA REEF FRONT REEF CREST REEF FLAT BEACH Coral reefs, human use and climate change COMPACT SMALL SEAGRASS 1. A worldwide threat of ecological collapse CORALS CORALS 5 For once, the popular mythology contains some truth. Coral reefs can be likened to tropical forests in certain Depth in metres important ways. Both reefs and jungles are biologi- cally diverse in comparison with other ecosystems. 10 Reefs are an essential supplier of protein to subsis- tence communities; a valuable currency earner for low-income countries through exploitation of their 15 resources and through tourism; a protector of land; and a naturalist’s paradise. Unfortunately, the analogy is equally apt with Figure 1 respect to the dark side of the picture; though we have barely tapped coral reefs for the knowledge to be gained or the natural products of interest to society, reefs. Fringing reefs are directly attached to land or reefs are coming under increasing threat, almost separated only by a shallow lagoon. exclusively because of human activities. On an individual reef, the total count of fish Around the world coral reefs have suffered a species and smaller marine organisms may exceed dramatic decline in recent years. About IO% may several thousand, but the number of individual coral already have been degraded beyond recovery. An- species is much lower. other 30% are likely to decline seriously within the The Indo-Pacific has some 700 reef building coral next 20 years. It has been predicted that more than species, many times more than the tropical Atlantic two-thirds of the world’s coral reefs may collapse (with some 35). In general, reefs in the Indo-Pacific ecologically within the lifetime of our grandchildren, differ from those of the Atlantic by having many more unless we implement effective management of these coral species, and by supporting much richer animal resources as an urgent priority. communities on their intertidal reef flats. The centre The reefs identified as being at greatest risk are in of coral diversity is the Southeast. South and Southeast Asia, East Africa, and the Asia region of the Indo-Pacific, and over 400 Caribbean. An IUCN survey during 1984-1989 found species of hard coral are believed to occur in Philip- that people had significantly damaged or destroyed pine waters. reefs in 93 countries. Moving away from this region, coral diversity declines. Nevertheless, over 200 coral species are recorded from the northern and central Red Sea, Coral reefs and biodiversity about 200 from Madagascar and Chagos. The east Coral forms range from compact brain corals found in coast of the Malaysian peninsula has 174 identified areas of high wave energy, through heavy branching species, southeast India about 117, the Gulf of Thai- and plate corals in deeper water, off the reef edge, to land some 60, and the Persian Gulf 57. smaller finely branched corals found behind the reef crest and in the lagoon. 2. The living reef Coral reefs are generally divided into four main Corals are colonial animals that produce a calcium types: atolls, barrier reefs, platform reefs and fringing carbonate (aragonite) skeleton beneath their film of reefs. Atolls, where reefs form a ring around a lagoon, living tissue. Reef-building or hermatypic corals are mainly found in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. contain within their tissues symbiotic algae, so that In the Pacific they are grouped into long island chains the colony actually functions as a plant-animal such as those of Micronesia and Central Polynesia. combination. A coral reef is the physical structure Barrier reefs are separated from the mainland by a created by the growth of the reef community. deep channel or lagoon, in which are found platform When a coral colony dies through storm damage, 1-2 is broken by the action of living organisms, or is eaten Limits to abundance by a parrotfish, the skeleton becomes the basic mate- rial forming the reef structure. Dead coral branches The living matter produced by the plants and algae in form the substrate on which new corals grow, while the a coral reef system, its gross primary productivity, is fragments are cemented together by the action of between 30 and 250 times as great as that of the open coralline algae. The fragmented skeletons form the ocean. While the productivity of tropical oceans is sand which contributes to reef growth by filling in the very low (18-50 grammes of carbon per sq. metre in a space between the larger fragments of dead coral year), coral reefs produce 1500-5000g. The reason for skeletons. Continual deposition allows a reef to keep the higher productivity of reefs is that corals and coral pace with rising sea-level by upward growth. communities recycle nutrients such as nitrate and Coral species, coral communities and the reef phosphate which are in limited supply in open-ocean structure differ widely in the growth rates.