The 7th Indonesian Biorock Workshop
15th - 21th November 2010
Gili Trawangan
Lombok, Indonesia
After the success of the 4th and 6th Biorock® workshops in November 2006 and December 2008 on Gili Trawangan, the Gili Eco Trust would like to organise another opportunity to extend all existing Biorock® structures, to build new structures around the Gili islands to continue the projects or reef regeneration, growing beaches, preventing erosion, fish habitat, and more. Also, the Gili Eco Trust would like to implement Biorock® reefs powered by tidal energy, wave energy, and/or solar energy during the next workshop, to make the technology even more sustainable.
Support from the businesses is crucial if these projects are to proceed and be a success.
For more information on the Biorock® process and bios of the workshop organizers please see the Global Coral Reef Alliance web site
Corals of Trawangan from Seth Greenspan on Vimeo.
"Corals of Trawangan" is part of a documentary on coral reef restoration worldwide called "Putting the Pieces Together." This portion of the documentary, produced and directed by Seth Greenspan, was shot on location at the 6th Indonesian Biorock Workshop in Gili Trawangan. For more information on Seth's work, visit www.dimestorestudio.com
*If you are experiencing playback difficulties - Try turning off the HD playback feature located to the right of the volume bars.
Why Biorock?
The Gili Islands are dependent on a healthy marine habitat for their fisheries, tourism, sand supply, shore protection and marine biodiversity. This habitat has been largely damaged by combinations of coral heatstroke, disease, storms, land-based sewage, global sea level rise, over-fishing and direct physical damage from destructive fishing practises, boats, anchors, tourists and reef harvesting. As a result, renewable marine resources are declining, endangering local food supplies, shorelines and tourism income. Without large-scale restoration of degraded habitats to make them capable of supporting larger fish and shellfish populations there will be fewer fish in the future and without healthy growing corals there will be fewer beaches or tourism income, affecting all business owners on the island. Restoration of our degraded reefs and coastal habitats on a scale that makes a difference must be an active environmental priority for local businesses and not an afterthought.
However, there is a much more serious purpose to these projects than for ecotourism. By keeping corals alive under lethal conditions and restoring coral reefs where they cannot recover naturally, we aim to restore the reef and its fisheries, to keep ecosystems from going extinct from global warming, and to protect the shoreline from vanishing under the waves. The Gili Trawangan projects will form a Coral Ark for restoring surrounding reefs the next time the corals are badly damaged from high temperatures, like they were in 1998. Therefore our goal is to grow every kind of coral we can.
The Biorock reef restoration project on the Gili Islands has been regenerating coral reefs for 6 years. Already measurable success can be seen with regard to fish populations, coral growth and survival rates, ecotourism, education and the halting of beach erosion. They are now nearly 40 Biorock structures around The Gili Islands, which fall into 3 categories of structure:
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Biorock reefs to grow corals and provide new fish habitats, thus creating interesting new dive sites.
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Biorock anti-erosion reefs to grow coral and provide fish nurseries whilst causing sand to accumulate on the beach. Good shallow snorkeling sites.
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Biorock wave breaker structures to stop and reverse the erosion, growing the beach.
Every Biorock reef or structure has been showing positive consequences on fish populations, coral biodiversity and regenerating eroding beach. It is the best technology ever used to restore our corals reefs in association with education to avoid further damage. Everyone on the Gili islands now know about the Biorock project and it is a big step forward in ecotourism, we should continue to send out information and expand our existing reefs. The Gili Islands could market themselves as an international destination for diving on marine restoration projects.
The Anti-erosion reefs are working very well as fish nurseries and by accumulating sand. The wave breaker reefs in Karma Kayak, Gili Eco Villas and Kokita have shown incredible results very quickly by stopping the erosion process. The beach directly behind the structures has started to grow. The other Biorock reefs are still growing coral faster and making divers happy through the biodiversity of fish and creatures they can observe on the structures and the surrounding area.
...recent Biorock project: Arno Atoll - The Republic of the Marshall Islands