Round Hill Resort & Spa in Hopewell, Hanover, 30minutes to the west of Montego Bay, Jamaica, requested a snorkelling garden in 2016 to develop and implement a snorkeler’s reef-garden of the resort's house-reef over four years, to conclude formal works in August of 2020.
ACTION
Exclusivity of the space under the Beach Control Act; an area of 3.2ha of shallow coral reef, seagrass and sand to be interpretively enforced in collaboration with the fishing and wider community, including via Round Hill’s own staff.
Culture and planting of 5000 nursery head-started coral isolates primarily of the ecosystem keystone and brilliant golden elkhorn-staghorn complex (Acropora)
Sourcing and training a Reef Gardener maintenance team from the local fishing community; from which to train a snorkelling guide to enhance the guest’s experience and programmatic ROI while reducing guest impacts.
Collaborating with Round Hill’s sales and marketing teams including imagery, social media and events, as well as ongoing consultation on coastal issues.
Site
3.2-hectares of shallow coral reef, seagrass and sands including the bathing and watersports/harbour areas, with a maximum depth of 7-metres. The boundary is shaped to minimize inconvenience to swimming spear-fishers moving along the coast, facilitating avoidance of the managed area.
Previously dominated by golden acropoid corals as per the rest of this coast and region, as evidenced by guest, staff and fisher memory as well as copious skeletal remnants. These died back through a regional disease event of 1982~3 plus more recent events likely related to elevated summer high-temperaturs in 1998 and 2005, as well as hurricanes including Gilbert (1988) and Ivan (2004).
At project commencement (2016), coral cover was abnormally high for this coast at more than 25% of hard surfaces with several very large multi-centenarian colonies, and included more than two-dozen distinct acroporid colonies and likely genetic lineages.
Round Hill bay is surrounded by fishing communities and previously fished by spear, gill-net and Antillean Z fish trap. Fish of any species larger than one’s hand were uncommon.
Ecosystem is out of balance and coral diseases persist, often facilitated by elevated summer temperatures. Corallivorous fish, snails and worms were common.
Snorkelers without guidance and/or training often come into contact with delicate corals. Sunscreens and skin creams exacerbate these impacts, causing further stress and mortality.
Current reef system was dominated by microalgae including seasonal blooms, representing a stable-state hindering a return of coral. Reefscapes are the green-brown of algae rather than the bright golds and greens of healthy Caribbean reef.
Algae is a poorer fish or lobster nursery habitat than coral, thus Hanover's fisheries have been rendered relatively unproductive.
Result
Guest experience in snorkelling has been greatly improved as evidenced by positive guest reports, comment-cards and increased use of complementary equipment and positive guest reports. This is prior to commencement of the formal snorkel-guiding programme.
Approximately 4200 corals have been nursery cultured and set back to the seafloor, with patches returning to habitat/ecological as well as aesthetic dominance. The final count (5000) is to be set by July of 2020
Fishing is greatly reduced, and fish are notably more abundant and larger, with larger species such as angelfish and snapper reappearing on the reefscape.
Curating of the in-culture population after the 2017 high-temperature (bleaching) event had no bleaching-related losses in the subsequent and more dramatic temperatures of 2019.
Active Gardening of the reefscape including collection of macroalgae has altered the aesthetic of the reef, keeping it from turning green in the summer and allowing guest/snorkeler access to the crest shallows. It has also greatly reduced the per-morning raking effort of the beach staff, including related losses in beach (sand).
Active Gardening of the reefscape has destabilized algae matting at the reef crest, allowing urchin, snail and fish grazing to maintain a state that has allowed growth and novel recruitment of hard corals. These novel clean (pink and purple crustose algae dominated) substrates have also provided particularly good substrates for planting nursery coral.
Active Gardening of coral-eating snails and worms has allowed planted colonies to fill three-diminutional habitat and aesthetic space, and growing large enough to withstand occasional pecking.