Punta Cana Resort & Club together with its Punta Cana Ecological Foundation took the lead to start coral gardening in the Dominican Republic. The pilot program seeks to ignite the spirit of recovery of coral reefs in the country. Dr. Austin Bowden-Kerby, well known for his management plan that led to the recovery of coral reefs in Fiji in the Pacific, head the first workshop at Punta Cana over last weekend. Participants included dive shop owners, Ministry of Environment staff, National Aquarium staff, Reef Check monitoring program participants in the DR, Punta Cana gardeners, Punta Cana Resort and Coral Canoa staff, Fundacion Global and DR1. During the workshop, the first fish houses (coral hospitals) were built as part of the pilot recovery effort.
Dr. Bowden-Kerby emphasized the need for the coral gardening effort to be part of a comprehensive management plan integrating fishermen, hotels, community and government to rescue the important resource.
Dr. Bowden-Kerby at a Tuesday talk at the Fundacion Global in Santo Domingo, had urged prior to the workshop in Punta Cana that the DR need take the lead in Caribbean efforts to rescue the coral reefs. He explained that once people know the value of this natural resource, they will change habits and actions that affect the well-being of coral reefs. At the conference, Dominican marine biologist Francisco Geraldes said that the corals are worth RD$3 billion to the Dominican economy. Healthy reefs are important for fishing, beach sand creation and protection of the coasts.
Dr. Bowden-Kerby highlighted that one mile of healthy reef can produce three tons of sand a day, important for the conservation of Dominican beaches. Parrot fish and sea urchins grinding the coral into sand. Bowden-Kerby mentioned that coral reefs have been harmed by the high concentration of nutrients in waste water discharged into the sea, garden and golf course fertilization that cause an excess of seaweed, and Sahara dust pollution. Overfishing has eliminated the important groupers (mero) and lobsters that would remove the seaweed that instead ends up smothering the coral reefs, that are abandoned to the damaging damsel fish and star urchins.
For more information on the Punta Cana Resort & Club, see http://dr1.com/directories/hotels/puntacana.shtml