Spawning! - WS GUAM 2014
[Brooder workshop]
Pictures by Perry Hampton
At night, excitement levels raised as we prepared for a big spawning night. Around 8PM, the night divers descended at Taguisson Bay. About an hour and a half later, they saw several colonies of Acropora surculosa go off! Various other Acropora and Goniastrea sp. were still setting when the group was started to run out of air. A bit of a pity, but it was good to know that so many corals were ready to reproduce!
The surge was pretty strong and hundreds of worms―attracted by our dive lights―tried to photobomb Paul's every shot. But Paul wouldn’t be Paul if he did not manage to get some nice pictures. Look closely, some of them even show the gametes 'preparing for takeoff' at the polyps mouths. Tomorrow, another spawning night is expected, so stay tuned!
[Spawning dive]
All the dives during the field workshops in Guam are supported by the Micronesian Divers Association (MDA). We have the chance to speak with the owner, Lee Webber. He was a newspaper publisher, but also a trustee for the Micronesia Conservation Trust (MCT) for many years, and has been involved in conservation for quite a long time!
[Interview Lee]
When did you realize that conservation is important?
I just remember when back in the early seventies, I went fishing. I could just go for a handful of hours and fill my coolers up. When in the nineties, I had a 25 foot Skipjack, I had to go 25 miles offshore, and still wouldn't catch as easily anymore. I also dove once with an Australian scientist doing reef research. We came back to the boat and he asked me: 'What did you hear?' I replied that I didn't hear anything. And he said: 'That's my point. It’s dead, there is no sound. And if there's no sound here, fish might be going past down there, but they will not come in to feed. So there you have one of the reasons why you're fishing isn't too great.
That was really fascinating to me. I had the opportunity to learn a lot. When diving, I remember what was, and what I see today. The impact that people have on the reefs…you just can’t see it if you don't put your face in the water.
What kind of conservation projects you were involved in?
For instance while publishing, we did a yearlong project on reef and conservation on Guam called 'Man land and sea'. We turned it into a newspaper-in-education (NIE) program for children and sold corporations blocks of newspapers that were then put into classrooms with curriculums for the teachers. The children took the newspapers home and worked on individual projects. At the end, we turned all of the published pages into a book and we even won a small national award for it.
On Guam, many years ago, we managed to set aside 13% of the peripheral reef as reserves. And in Hawaii we set aside a large amount of newspaper advertising to educate people on conservation work in Maunalua Bay. Another interesting project was about a particular tree that only grows on the island of Kosrae. In order to protect those trees from extinction, we rented the land that those trees grow on. We basically paid the family not to destroy the trees, a really unique project.
What is in your opinion the most important aspect of conservation?
Public education is probably the most important thing. You have to start with children, adults don't usually make change unless it's critical to their lives. But you can teach children. And you can keep teaching them as they grow, integrate it into school systems, and make it part of their lives. It just takes time, effort and persistence. And it takes leadership that cares. But the latter seem to care more about money than the environment, unless you can somehow translate conservation into dollars.
Back in times past the chiefs used to be responsible for their people, for their environment. There's an old story about two young boys that went out and got a sea turtle, without asking their chief if they could pick it. They were caught and the people on their little island were told not to set foot into the ocean for a specific period of time. They could only eat what they found on land, and almost the whole island starved. There's lessons in those stories.
What are your hopes for the SECORE Initiative?
In the long term the whole idea is to be able to replant corals, which will help the reefs to come back. But that will only work if you get politicians to stop allowing men to destroy reefs. SECORE's work is a start and you have to start somewhere. Then combine it with education and public awareness and you increase the chances of success in the longer term.
