Filed under: History, Paddling, Scuba Diving, Oceania, French Polynesia
Bora Bora, Society Islands, French Polynesia - I dove in the beautiful lagoon that surrounds the tall island to have a first hand look at how the coral reef is doing in this South Pacific resort island. The report is not good.
Descending to ninety feet it was immediately clear that the reef has been hammered in the past few years. I've come here every year for the past decade and have seen incredible change.
I spent most of the morning observing the still-growing reef system just ten to thirty feet below the surface. Although the waters are warm and magnificently clear an invasive predators and natural disaster have both taken big tolls.
Populations of acanthaster -- more popularly known as the Crown of Thorns starfish - mysteriously arrived in Polynesia in 2006. No one is sure exactly how they got here or where they originated, though invasive species are well known for hitching rides on cargo ships and jumping off far from home. Here in the shallows surrounding Bora Bora - as they have done to reefs on nearby Moorea, Raiatea-Tahaa, Huahine and Maupiti - the predatory starfish have eaten, thus killed, hundreds of acres of coral.
The natural disaster occurred in February 2010, when Cyclone Oli whipped the nearby seas to a froth of eighteen to twenty-one feet, pouring over the protective reef and across the lagoon. The impact on the corals was devastating, as deep as 100 feet below the surface.
At twenty feet below, the coral was ripped off at its base and forever destroyed. Rather than coral, today much of the shallows of the lagoon floor are covered instead of by a fine pale yellow algae mat. The deeper you dive, the less destruction you see, but the powerful storm - the first cyclone to hit here in fourteen years -- still managed to break, mangle and kill coral. The only slight upside is that it was also hard on the starfish population.
Continue reading The coral reefs of Bora Bora
The coral reefs of Bora Bora originally appeared on Gadling on Thu, 26 May 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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