The team, composed of conservationists from different government environmental agencies, recently conducted an annual survey of Rota’s reefs and the team members were pleased with their findings.
Team member Peter Houk, a marine biologist with the Division of Environmental Quality, said although the physical environment of Rota, due to its geological past, is less favorable for coral growth compared to Saipan’s, they found out that Rota’s reef recovers faster from large-scale disturbances.
This, he said, attests to Rota’s clean waters and larger populations of fish and invertebrate that graze on algae on the reef.
The team took pictures that highlighted the differences between the reefs in Laolao Bay on Saipan and the Coral Gardens on Rota.
The Coral Gardens marine protected area shows continued coral growth and recovery from the disturbances.
In Rota’s Talakhaya area, where there is an ongoing watershed re-vegetation and anti-burning campaign, significant increases in coral resources were also noted.
Another team member, John Starmer of the Coastal Resource Management Office, said despite the overall fast recovery of Rota’s reefs, there are still two sites near the island’s harbors that show a continued but slow decline in coral abundance and diversity.
Starmer said the increased frequency in large-scale disturbances that is expected to accompany global climate changes will shorten the available recovery time for CNMI reefs.
It is imperative, he added, that government, non-government organizations and individual members of the community take major steps to reduce chronic and localized disturbances.
The other members of the CNMI marine monitoring team were John Iguel, Carlos Ketengbangang, and Gary Toves.
The team, Houk said, has been monitoring reefs throughout the CNMI since 2000.
Over the years, he added, they have noted two major types of natural disturbances that have impacted the reefs in the past seven years.
Climate-induced bleaching and high population of coral-eating starfish, for example, have injured vast expanses of reefs between 2003 and 2005.
Houk said “recovery is the key.”
The disturbances are uncontrollable, he added, and have been occurring as long as the reefs have existed.
Based on evidence gathered from similar studies around the world, recovery takes five years under ideal conditions.
But this healing timeframe, Houk noted, is slowed, or even stopped, by localized chronic disturbances such as watershed pollution and removal of too many grazing fish and sea urchins.
