Reef conservation project involving sport divers in Singapore

Abstract

The limited extent of Singapore's territorial waters places almost all the area within the boundary of its harbours. This includes many of the fringing and patch reefs associated with the southern offshore islands which themselves are subjected to intense human activities. In spite of this, quantitative studies of a few selected reefs showed that the reefs still maintained a high diversity and live coral cover on the upper reef slope zone. In 1988, 3 nongovernmental organisations, the Republic of Singapore Yacht Club, the Singapore Institute of Biology and the Singapore Underwater Federation launched a reef survey and conservation project aimed at assessing almost all of the patch and fringing reefs. Sport divers were trained on how to conduct reef surveys and placed on the survey programme only after they have satisfied the training requirements. Throughout 1989 and the first quarter of 1990, over 150 volunteer sport divers participated in the project which surveyed 59 sites at 29 reefs. The survey results have all been entered into a dBase 4 programme and give a better understanding of the state and condition of most of the coral reefs of Singapore.