Endlessly exploited and damaged, the Buccoo Reef ecosystem is a remarkable national resource that is demonstrating resilience even in the face of climate change. Shivonne Peters writes about the life on Buccoo Reef and our need to treasure what remains and what is coming back.
Buccoo Reef is not dead! They say that the only thing that remains of this once thriving ecosystem is an extensive seagrass community.
That’s not true. While many may remember the Buccoo Reef circa the 1980s and 1990s, a time when areas such as Coral Gardens were vibrant and full of pristine corals and an abundance of reef fish, life on the reef changes and is persistent.
There is no doubt that Buccoo Reef has been heavily degraded. Scientific studies show a decline in coral cover, especially at shallower depths. There is an overgrowth of macroalgae, which often smothers corals and results in coral mortality. The average person who visited the reef decades ago will indeed see a starkly different reef today.
But a declining coral reef is not a dead reef and there’s always hope for life again. If the Buccoo Reef were in fact dead, life would be drastically different for us in Tobago today, and not in a good way. The Buccoo Reef complex is more than its corals, though these may be the factor that makes this 7 km-square area so incredible. In addition to the coral reefs, the complex comprises seagrass beds and mangrove forests at Buccoo and Bon Accord.
The Buccoo Reef provides numerous ecosystem services for us, including protecting our shorelines from strong wave action and erosion, supporting our fisheries by providing nursery habitats for fish species including commercially important species, and climate regulation by absorbing carbon dioxide and producing oxygen.
Additionally, the Buccoo Reef is considered the most popular attraction on the island: the Nylon Pool, No Man’s Land (formally known as Sheerbird’s Point) and Coral Gardens continue to attract and fascinate visitors from around the world.
Yet the average visitor, foreign or local, has not experienced the hidden treasures of Buccoo Reef.
Elkhorn and staghorn
One remarkable area is home to an expansive elkhorn coral (Acropoa palmata) colony approximately 1,200 square metres in size. Elkhorn corals are considered critically endangered by the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature), meaning that this species faces a very high risk of becoming extinct in the wild.
Regionally, this reef-building species has declined some 97 per cent since the 1980s due in large part to the white band disease (a disease that destroys coral tissues and leads to death).
In the Buccoo Reef, the elkhorn coral colony is home to a wide range of reef fish, including parrotfish and surgeonfish of considerable size and at various stages of their life cycle ie from juveniles to mature adults. The fact that this species exists here validates the need for collective and sustained action to protect our Buccoo Reef.
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