Dr Anjani Ganase, coral reef ecologist, writes about the devastating bleaching taking place on all reefs around Tobago.
As the boat cruised along the coast, the water is clear enough to see the white glow from the reef below. Reef after reef, from the Buccoo Marine Park to Speyside, the white patches were expansive and jarring, some large enough to surround the boat.
Rolling back into water – way too warm for Christmas season, I saw that what I was dreading had become reality. Reefs that were once vibrant with colour looked like snow-capped mountains. Most were bone white, exposing the skeletons, while a few were sickly and pale.
Throughout my career, I have seen many thriving and healthy reefs. I have also seen many dead coral reefs, barren and devoid of life, in the aftermath of cyclones, dynamite fishing and other mass mortality events.
To see corals dying on the reefs around our home islands is beyond tragic. I wonder if all of the Northern Range burned in a single year, would this be a national emergency? Would it be the wake-up call to protect our watershed? Today, all the coral reefs of our country are burning – out of sight and out of mind – from a marine heatwave felt in the waters around Tobago for the last three months.
Heartbreaking
I’ve studied the coral reefs of Tobago for the last five years. Despite seeing many degraded reefs, I’ve also discovered many reefs that are among the best in the Caribbean, especially the reefs of northeast Tobago, but also in the most-visited marine area on the island.
The Buccoo Reef, despite the lack of protection, housed many rare species of corals treasured by the few who still visited the area for its natural wonder. Patches of incredibly rare branching staghorn and elkhorn corals against the white sand shone like jewels in the shallow lagoon adjacent to the Nylon Pool.
[caption id="attachment_1123327" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Coral Gardens -BEFORE: Coral Gardens, the most-visited coral reef on the island in the Buccoo Reef Marine Park, has suffered some bleaching. Photos show images of the healthy Coral Gardens (a), and the Coral Gardens bleached. - Anjani Ganase[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_1123328" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Coral Gardens - After - Anjani Ganase[/caption]
They are now dimmed by death, likely the first to go when the heat wave started in June. Twenty-five weeks of heat stress have simply cooked them. The fish are gone and the branches of the dead corals already breaking under the weight of algae growing over their skeletal remains.
Most people don’t realise that corals are found in most bays of Tobago, a coastline over 360 km long, with the most mature and well-developed reefs occurring at Buccoo and off northeast Tobago.
We know of the largest brain coral off Speyside, but nearly all Tobago’s reefs are home to large and ancient corals similar in size and stature. These are the plating and bouldering mountainous star coral, with diameters of up to five metres, and other brain coral colonies of the same spec
