A demonstration program for reef monitoring was conducted from 24 - 26 August 2004, on the island of GDh. Atoll Thinadhoo. More than 20 students from GDh Atoll Education Centre which is one of the three schools who are engaged in the Small Islands Voice on-ground activities in the Maldives volunteered to participate in this program.

Field demonstration was followed by a lecture session on the importance of coral reefs, their management and on the survey methodology presented by Mr. Hussein Zahir, of the Marine Research Center who also guided the students through the field work. Even though most of the students who participated in this program were students from environment club of the school, there were other volunteered students and teachers from the school as well.

As the reef survey needs a long term monitoring mechanism targeted on given time periods, the schools were presented with 5 sets of snorkeling gears and with other accessories needed to continue the survey by themselves. A field guide which helped the students on the survey methodology and identifying the types of corals and fishes was also presented.

Since the field session was aimed demonstrate the students on how to do the survey no real data was collected.

Resource monitoring for management
Mr. Hussein Zahir

The management of coastal resources such as reef resources can only succeed if the local communities are well informed and agree. In this regard there is need to educate and train local communities in self assessment and use the outcome of these assessments for self management, particularly to understand the benefits of good management as well as the consequence of no action.

Most communities may see that their resources are been steadily depleted but often they do not understand the reasons. Governments do not usually have the resources to enforce regulations effectively. Therefore education and awareness raising of all stake holders is the best mechanism to have self enforcement of management rules. The best means to get good management of coral reefs and other ecosystems is through education at all levels. The future users and leaders of the resources can be informed in primary, secondary and tertiary schools about the principles of ecosystems, good management and threats to the system.

Such an education program needs good teaching resources and teaching guides that are applicable to the region. It should also be comparable at all levels (local and national) so that trends and changes can be measured and compared.

Introduction of a tangible and measurable methodology for coral reef assessment targeting the environmental clubs in the schools in the island communities in the Maldives has been initiated as part of an environmental awareness and capacity building effort. This is primarily to educate and increase awareness among the school children, on the overall state of their immediate environment, identify the causes for the deterioration of the environment.

The status of the resource can be measured by surveying that is gathering data or information about the resources in the ecosystem once which may include measure of many things. A survey can give data and information on the status of the health of a system (e.g. bleached or healthy corals) and how the resources have been used (e.g. fish, sea cucumber, lobster).

With repeated monitoring information on the changes to the resources can be readily available. This would be particularly useful if surveys are repeated using the same methodology. Monitoring shall be repeated usually for several years at least to be useful, because some things can change naturally between seasons or years (e.g. growth of some species of algae). It is essential to monitor important components of the reef that are needed for resource management (e.g. commercial fish species, live coral cover). Otherwise monitoring may take too long and be too expensive. Monitoring will tell of changes or trends that happen in the reef system as indication of overuse or damage. This information can also be used to take some management action to curb the problems and the successfulness of these actions can also be measured over time, through monitoring.

Methodology
The methodology adopted for this community (school environmental clubs) level monitoring program is the Reefcheck coral reef monitoring protocol (www.reefcheck.org) which has been specifically designed to provide scientifically robust information on the status of the reefs, and at the same time be easy and practical to carry out by people who have limited knowledge on the biology and ecology of the reefs.

In principle an observer swims with a snorkel and mask along a transect line and records the benthic category that is directly below the transect line

Two specific methods are been adapted for the reef monitoring program.

1. Point Intercept Transect (PIT) methodology for monitoring benthic community
2. Fish belt transect for assessing the reef fish community

Point Intercept Transect (PIT)

Information obtained
Percent cover of the benthic communities monitored can be easily obtained using specially designed Excel spread sheets. In addition to the percentage cover of the various benthic groups (e.g. hard coral) basic statistics for different groups can be also calculated.

Equipment required
Mask, snorkel and fins
Tape measure (2x 50meters)
Plum line (small metal object tied to 1 meter string)

General procedure
Lay the 100 meter transect using the measuring tapes on the reef edge/ reef flat area along the depth contour. The observer then swims along the transect and records the substrate or benthos directly below the line. The plum line removes the bias and parallax error. The plum line is used to determine the benthos directly below the line at each 0.5 meter interval. Four 20 meter segments of the 100 meter transect line are used for recording the benthic group below the every 0.5m. A total of 160 points (40x 4) the main groups of reef organisms and substrate recorded using PIT are;

Fish belt transect

Information obtained
Abundance of key target fishes

Equipment required
Transect tape (100 meters)
PVC pole to estimate the belt width (optional)

General procedures:
Lay out the 100 meter transect tape at the same depth contour and the location for monitoring benthic community (same transect line is used for both surveys). Wait for 15 minutes after the transect laying to start and continue the fish survey because the fish are disturbed during the transect layout. The census area for the fish survey is also 4 x 20 meter segments which are 5 meters wide (2.5 meters either side of the transect line). The observer counts and records the number of target species in each segment. The target species can be specified and agreed for the specific region and same species or groups are monitored repeatedly over time. The main groups of fishes that are recorded are given below.

Butterfly fishes
Sweetlips
Snappers
Groupers
Parrot fishes
Surgeon fishes

Additional information
In addition to these surveys general information about the site, such as fishing patterns, source of pollution, population of the island, number of fishermen, coastal development activities can be important to link to the trends that may emerge through long term monitoring.

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