Earth Hour strikes this Saturday, and we’ll turn off the non-essential lights at Red Planet Hotels. But our planet needs a lot more love than an hour a year.
Red Planet Thailand and 80 volunteers from Baan Din Thai Volunteer Spirit Network planted new coral reefs last Saturday at Samae San island in Chonburi. Students and participants with interest in marine conservation got hands-on experience in restoring the marine world and understanding the human impact on our oceans.
Coral reefs are the tropical forests of our seas and home to a quarter of all marine life. And for anyone swimming in tropical waters, the beautiful rainbow colours of coral reefs can be an unforgettable sight. A colourful, healthy coral and algae covering its tissue depend on each other for survival, and the algae provide a food source for the coral. When it becomes stressed (often due to human behaviour), the algae will abandon it, leaving the coral without nutrition and turning it white. This is called coral bleaching.
As corals cannot survive in high water temperatures, climate change and global warming are the main reasons for coral bleaching. And particularly in popular tourist destinations, like in Thailand, certain chemicals in sunscreens are paralysing and sometimes killing the ecosystem. Amazingly, these damaged coral fragments can be nurtured and replanted at a new site creating healthy reefs 50 times faster than Mother Nature.
After the recent coral farming efforts in the bay on Phi Phi island, many non-profit organisations have started their coral restoration programmes. The result? It creates better living conditions and feeding grounds for many fish species (like big reef sharks and tiny chromatic fish like the ones you saw in Finding Nemo). And if you had lobster or crab on your dinner plate, it’s likely that it relied directly on the coral reef for nurture and spawning. So, next time you plan to eat seafood — remember to give some love back to the corals.
Coral reef restoration is one of many projects where we aim to make lasting contributions to the environment.