Song for Jasmine

black cheeked moray

On Monday, my blog will be one year old. It seems to be traditional to celebrate your first ‘blogiversary’ by reflecting on the previous year, asking people what they think of your blog, analysing your statistics, stuff like that. I’m not going to do that, … much.

By far the most popular article on my blog this past year has been Charles Darwins’ first theory of evolution, with Songs about Pollution a distant second. Quite why people are so fascinated with singing about pollution is beyond me, I’m not sure I really want to know, so I’m not going to analyse my stats more than that.

So, I’ve decided to celebrate my blogiversary by asking “What do you see in my blog”, but with a twist. Here are some photos of fish and other creatures that live on coral reefs. Some, like the black-cheeked moray at the top, are always easy to spot. Others manage to hide themselves well, even when you’re looking straight at them. That’s what these photos are about, and I invite you to see if you can identify them. Thanks to Earth, Wind & Water for giving me the idea.

As always, if you click on the photo you will get a larger version, which will definitely help in some cases. I’ll add a comment in a few days identifying everything, in case you can’t make them out.

Looking at these pictures again makes me wonder how many times I’ve looked at a reef and missed something. I’m sure it’s happened a lot, there’s so much life down there that I must surely have missed more stuff than I can imagine. That’s part of the magic of diving, you can dive the same place time and time again and still find new things to enjoy.

These photos were all taken in the Maldives, the only place I’ve dived with a camera. It takes a lot of practise and luck to get good underwater pictures. Some of the subjects are hard to see because the shots capture the way in which it blends in well with its surroundings, others are hard to identify because the photos are not really all that good. Never mind, here goes!

This first one is easy enough. It takes some practise to be able to spot them when you first start diving, but when you get the measure of them it’s often easy to find them – some of them, at least. In the Maldives, if not elsewhere, they can get quite large, 12-18 inches (30-45 cm), and often hide right on top of the reef at 15-30 feet (5-10 metres) depth, where the light is good.

mystery fish 1

This one is rather harder. I dived several times at this location, in Ari Atoll, but never once found this fish for myself. Even when you know where to look for them they’re hard to find. Like many smaller fish, they have a habit of turning themselves to present a narrow profile to larger creatures (such as me) to better avoid being spotted.

mystery fish 2

This one is even harder to identify. If you don’t know this fish exists, you probably won’t see it. Like the fish in the photograph above, it insisted on turning itself narrow-side on to me, making it harder to get a good picture of it. I wonder how many of these I’ve overlooked, this is the only one I’ve ever seen.

mystery fish 3

This one is the hardest of the lot. Even I have trouble making it out. I can see a fin easily enough, but to figure out exactly where the head is, the body, and the tail, that takes some scrutiny. If I recall correctly, I only saw this one because it moved.

mystery fish 4

This one is fairly easy. This is the only one of these I’ve ever seen, and it was big, about the size of a watermelon. I like diving close to the reef, moving slowly along it looking for small things hidden away. Finding myself almost eyeball-to-eyeball with this guy came as quite a surprise. Incidentally, this is one good reason not to touch the reef while diving. These things are poisonous to the touch, and well camouflaged.

mystery fish 5

Lastly, this is one of my favourite photos, though not one of my best. I wanted to get a picture of the banded boxer shrimp, but the camera chose to focus on something else instead, and I’m glad it did. So the question is, how many shrimps can you see in this photo? I’ll give you a hint, there are more than two.

how many shrimps do you see?

whitetip reef shark (Triaenodon obesus)

The Maldives claims to be the place where “even the sharks are friendly”. I’m not too sure I’d want to meet a ‘friendly’ shark, I’d settle for ‘indifferent’. In my experience, the sharks in the Maldives are definitely that, I’ve seen several dozen and they’ve never shown the slightest interest in me. That’s not the only reason why the Maldives is a fantastic place to dive, though it certainly helps. If you’re thinking of going there for a diving holiday, I can recommend it.

I’ve visited four islands on diving holidays, some of them two or three times. I learned to dive with Sea Explorer, at Reethi Beach (Baa atoll), back in 2000. I’ve dived at Machafushi (Ari atoll), where they have an impressive wreck, deliberately sunk on the house reef. I’ve also dived with Ocean-pro dive-team, at Coco Palm (Baa atoll) and Mirihi (Ari atoll).

It has to be said, none of the websites for the islands or their dive-schools do them justice. They are very pretty to look at, but don’t really give any idea of what it’s like to dive in those places. Hopefully, I can go some small way to filling that gap, with this and future articles.

clownfish

The Maldives is a great place to learn. Shallow lagoons make for easy first lessons, and warm waters mean no messing around with thick wetsuits. The resorts all have a large variety of dive-sites to choose from, normally with a good range for all levels of ability and all interests, from beginner to expert diver. Many (if not all) of the resorts are PADI dive-centres, though I believe they also accept most other internationally recognised certificates. Your tour-operator can probably check for you if you are in any doubt.

Although PADI certify divers to 40 metres (120 feet) (with the Deep Diver certification), the Maldives imposes its own limit of 30 metres (90 feet). Diving below that is not permitted in order to limit disturbance to the environment. That’s not really a handicap, there’s plenty to see in that 30 metres. That said, it’s true that the scenery does change with the depth, and if you are limited to shallower depths by your certification, you might want to consider taking an extra course while you’re there, to get the full value from your dives.

lionfish (Pterois Volitans) at Kihaa Rock

You can dive on the house-reef of your resort, but most of the diving happens from boats. Depending on your resort, there may be one or two boats in the morning, and one or two in the afternoon. Reethi Beach, for example, run two boats in the morning, one which leaves early and does two dives (with an hour’s rest between them) and one which leaves later, doing only one dive. That lets you choose the pace you want for your holiday.

You have to sign up for the boat you want the day before, so they know how many people to expect. Places are limited on each boat, and some popular dive-sites get fully subscribed quickly, so depending on how fanatical your fellow holiday-makers are, you may have to be quick! If you miss out on a site you wanted to visit, just ask the dive-centre. They’ll be willing to re-schedule it soon enough, after giving a day or two to avoid over-diving at the same site, and you’ll get your chance.

scorpionfish

Some resorts, Coco Palm is one of them, also organise all-day trips. The boat leaves Coco Palm early in the morning and takes in three dive-sites. You eat lunch on board, and because it’s a longer trip, you get to go to some of the farther sites, places that you might otherwise not get to. It can be quite tiring, but it’s great fun!

House reefs can also be a lot of fun. If you want a rest from the boats, a house-reef is a more leisurely dive. In fact, the house reef at Machafushi is the place I’ve dived at most in the Maldives. The ship sunk there attracts a great deal of life, and it was always a pleasure to dive there.

For first-time divers, there are a couple of specific tips I can think of. These apply anywhere, not just to the Maldives. First, if you’re hiring equipment from the dive-centre, check the pockets of your BCD when you collect it, in case there are extra weights in them. It’s quite possible that the previous user had bouyancy problems, in which case his or her instructor may well have put an extra kilo of weight in the pockets to help them. If they forgot to remove that weight, it could upset your own diving.

black cheeked moray eel (Gymnothorax Breedeni)

Second, if you’re assigned an instructor or divemaster to follow, make sure you know what they look like. That sounds trivial, but if you’re on your first open water dive, it’s quite possible to forget that, for example, your instructor is bald, and discover that the person you are following is not. Yes, I did that! Some instructors make a point of having mis-matched fins, one blue and one yellow, for example. This makes them easy to identify underwater.

banded boxer shrimp (Stenopus Hispidus)

Such mistakes are probably very rare, and you should not be put off from diving because I mention them. For divers of all levels, the Maldives has a lot to offer. There’s the big stuff, sharks, mantas, morays, fish and corals, which are always fun to see. But there’s also a lot of small stuff hidden away, and it’s a great incentive to improve your diving. Many of the smaller creatures live in small holes or under ledges, and you need good bouyancy control to be able to approach them without disturbing them or damaging the reef. I personally prefer looking for the smaller creatures, and find that diving slowly and close to the reef is more relaxing than swimming hard to cover a lot of ground.

The Maldives is a place where strong currents can occur, and some of the best diving is to be had where the current runs fast. Small fish come out from the reef to feed, big fish come to feed on the small fish, and corals will sometimes open, even during the day. Fighting against a current is hard work, so unless you know how to stay close to the reef and minimise your exertions you may soon find you are using up your air too quickly, or that you have reached the end of the reef early.

strong current at Anga Faru, Baa atoll (note the bubbles streaming away to the right!)

Either way, your dive will be over, and you will be back on the boat while other people are still enjoying their dives. Of course, if you’re going to stay close to the reef, you need to be very careful not to damage it, so you need to know what you are doing. The dive-centre staff will be happy to give you tips (thank you Robert Schneider!), and you should take every opportunity to talk to them and learn from them.

Even if you are certified to dive on your own, you may want to follow the divemaster or instructor, at least for a few dives. They will know the best places to look for small creatures and interesting things, which can help you learn how to find things for yourself. If you are more confident, heading out on your own away from other divers (but always with your buddy!) means there will be less people near you disturbing the animals you are looking for, which may make them easier to find.

One thing you really must try, even if you are a beginner, is a night-dive. The boat will leave around sunset, and you enter the water as twilight descends. You can still see where you are going and get your bearings, so there’s no difficulty in orienting yourself. Soon, the light disappears, and you and your buddy are left with your torches to explore a reef that looks very different to its daytime appearance. I once dived on the reef at Thiladhoo, in Baa atoll, in the afternoon and night of the same day. They could have been two completely distinct reefs, things were so different. Oh yes, I thoroughly recommend night-dives!

anthias and reef, Ari atoll

If you are planning to visit the Maldives in winter, you should consider getting flu vaccinations well before you fly. The last thing you want is to be paying 5-star rates to stay in bed with a cold, and you certainly can’t dive with a congested nose.

For a diving holiday, you will need at least two weeks, one week is just too short. You need a day to get over the jet-lag of getting there, and you can’t dive for 24 hours before your return flight, so a week just wouldn’t give enough time to dive.

More importantly, once you’ve dived in the Maldives, you’ll want to do it again. Even as you board the plane to come home, you’ll be trying to figure out when you can come back again. Take my word for it. Or better yet, don’t take my word, go there and find out for yourself!

Zemanta recently won second prize in the Change the Web Challenge for web-innovation, and they are giving away the prize money to whichever charities most people vote for. Zemanta, in case you haven’t heard of it, is a tool for suggesting content (photos and links to related articles) to add to your blog, based on whatever you’ve already typed in. It works for WordPress, Blogger, TypePad, and a wole bunch of other blogging platforms. If you’re using FireFox, you can run it as a plugin in your browser, so you don’t need to install it on your blogging host.

You can try the interactive demo on their website. Just cut and paste the text from one of your old blog posts to replace the sample text they put there, hit the ‘run demo’ button, and see what pops out. I’m willing to bet you’ll be impressed. Oh, and did I mention it’s free?

So, Zemanta, congratulations on winning that prize, and thank you for a great tool. Now on to my vote. I would like you to donate to the Marine Conservation Society UK, to help them with the work they do. The Marine Conservation Society UK is involved in a large number of activities around the British coast, and beyond. Coastline is something that Britain has lots of, so it’s an important charity!

They actively campaign to persuade the UK government to establish Marine Protected Areas, and encourage people to get involved at several levels, such as reporting sightings of basking shark, turtles, pink sea fan and many other creatures that can be seen in the seas around Britain. They encourage divers to become better observers by learning about their marine environment so they can in turn provide more accurate and useful observations to help drive conservation efforts.

They have a lot of educational resources for schools and project-suggestions for college students. They even organise coral reef surveys in the Maldives for recreational divers.

For the less well-heeled visitor to the British seaside, they monitor the state of beaches and publish an annual guide to the best beaches in the UK. This is not just cosmetic, many beaches pose health risks for swimmers, so knowing where to go is important. To help you get there, they even provide downloadable maps for your in-car GPS. How’s that for service!

Zemanta have had over 50 charities proposed to them so far, and will donate to the five that get the most votes. If you think that the Marine Conservation Society UK deserves a donation from them, all you need do is blog about it yourself, to add your vote.

This blog post is part of Zemanta’s “Blogging For a Cause” campaign to raise awareness and funds for worthy causes that bloggers care about.

Anthias on the reef

Verena Wiesbauer is a marine biologist, with particular knowledge of coral propagation and restoration techniques. In March 2009, she gave a lecture to the Maldives Science Society. Someone in the audience filmed it, and was kind enough post it on google-video, so now you can all enjoy watching “The Coral Reefs of the Maldives” as I have.

I learned a lot from this presentation, it’s very educational and entertaining. There’s a ‘pop-quiz’ early on, in which you are asked to identify what type of plant or animal is being shown. I pride myself on having correctly recognised Coriocella (though I did have to look up how to spell it), having seen them in Baa Atoll a few years ago.

Verena tells us that the Maldives sits on a volcanic chain which forms the basement of the islands. These volcanoes were active around 67 million years ago, so around the time the dinosaurs were dodging asteroids. Coral first started growing on these volcanoes some 55-57 million years ago. Since then, sea-level has changed several times, most recently after the last ice-age when it rose dramatically as the ice melted and retreated. The Maldivian atolls were flooded at that time, and the upward growth of coral only succeeded in creating islands around 3000-4000 years ago. The actual coral growth in the Maldives now forms a layer about 2000 metres thick. That’s a lot of coral!

soft coral

Having shown us some of the animals that live in and around the Maldivian reefs, Verena goes on to tell us about some of the problems that are affecting the reefs today. Beach erosion is a serious problem. With two monsoons each year, coming from different directions, it is natural for the sand to shift from one side of an island to the other during the year. In 2000, half of the islands were sufferring from beach erosion. There are simple measures that the Maldivians can take to protect themselves from the worst effects of such erosian, such as not building too close to the shoreline and using sand and aggregates imported from India for construction (instead of dredged from their own reefs).

They can also protect the islands by protecting the living reef. A living reef will protect against beach erosion by reducing the force of the waves as they come inshore, a dead reef will soon be destroyed by the waves and offer little or no protection. A reef needs at least 50% live coral-cover to provide adequate protection, few of the Maldivian reefs have that at this time.

There are other threats to the reefs too. The Maldivians themselves generate a lot of waste, and they have nowhere to put it. The island of Thilafushi is a municipal landfill, and there is concern that all sorts of toxic waste from it may leak into the ocean and harm the environment.

gorgonian sea fan

Discarded fishing-lines cause a lot of damage too. One horrible slide in the presentation shows a turtle that became entangled in a fishing-line while it was young. It survived, and grew up with the fishing-line constricting its growth. I’ve never seen a turtle with an hour-glass figure before, and I hope I never do again.

Another major cause of damage to coral reefs is the tourist industry. Divers, even experienced ones, can cause a lot of damage. Verena gives a personal account of diving with tourists who lay down on the reef to watch sharks, and who were upset with her for not doing the same because she might scare the sharks away! I’ve seen divers who allowed their diving lamps to trail along the bottom of a reef like a wrecking-ball while they were concentrating on getting closer to a few manta-rays nearby.

Not surprisingly, divers with cameras cause more damage than those without, they’re focussed (literally!) on what they’re looking at, not what they’re bumping into. Diving from shore causes more damage than diving from boats, and night-diving causes more damage than diving during the day. Even without direct physical contact, reefs can be damaged by divers who kick up sediment with their fins, smothering the corals they have paid so much to see.

It’s not only divers, but also snorkellers, that damage reefs. Snorkellers will often stand on the reef to adjust their equipment, and can do a great deal of damage by careless contact. Verena cites a paper by W.R.Allison in 1996 which showed that snorkellers can can do an immense amount of damage in a short period of time.

Verena says that the dive-schools could give better briefings, for both divers and snorkellers. Her own experience is that people appreciate being reminded of the simple things they can do to reduce their personal impact. I know some dive-schools don’t like to impose on their divers, so will not mention such things in their briefings. You can always invite them to say something when they ask if there are any questions. Put your hand up and say “I have a question, do we have to be careful about what we touch on this dive?”. It’s worth a try!

Dive-schools should also respect the ‘carrying-capacity’ of dive-sites, and not visit them too frequently, so they have time to recover from each invasion. This is a particular problem in the Red Sea, where many reefs are seriously degraded by divers. Of course, that’s not easy when there are many dive-schools competing to take people to the most popular sites.

Individually, divers can take steps to reduce their impact even more. Those of you that dive with PADI can take the Peak Performance Buoyancy course (other organisations probably have something similar). You’ll find you dive better (i.e. use less air, are more relaxed) and do less harm to the reef because you have more control. You’ll see more on each dive, too, because you will spend less time fighting with your equipment and frightening fish with your thrashing, and more time looking around.

Coco-palm encourages tourists to preserve the environment

Tourism can also be a positive force. wildaid.org invented the slogan “When the buying stops, the killing can too“, and used it in their campaign against shark-finning. You can kill a shark for its fins only once, but if you leave it alive, tourists will pay again and again to come and see it when they dive.

Verenas’ presentation has an optimistic tone, she clearly loves her work. There are things that can be done to help the reefs, and she mentions some of the many restoration and conservation projects in the Maldives. She herself has assisted in the creation of an artificial reef at Huvafenfushi. I’ll end this post with a quotation she gave at the beginning of per presentation. It’s from Baba Dioum, a Senegalese environmentalist or poet (depending on who you ask):

It would be good if people were taught more about the world we live in today.

Mohamed Nasheed, president of the Maldives, has recently given the best political speech I have ever heard. Released with the premier of “Age of Stupid“, his message to the world about climate change was very clear. If you’ve never heard a politician talking straight and making sense before, you may find it refreshing.

“Age of Stupid” was released on March 15th in the UK. Set in 2055, it’s a film about the consequences of global warming, made using a lot of real news footage from recent times. For example, one clip features French mountain guide Fernand Pareau reflecting on the way the glaciers and Alps have changed in his 82 years. The film stars Pete Poslethwaite as a man looking back at 2008 and asking “why didn’t we stop climate change when we had the chance?”. Pete is a lovely actor, highly charismatic and gloriously ugly (no offense intended, Pete). I just loved him in “Jurassic Park – The Lost World”, a role rather at the opposite end of the ecological spectrum. Pete clearly believes in the message of “Age of Stupid”, he has a wind turbine in his garden in Shropshire.

Back to President Nasheed, what did he say in his speech? Well, for one thing, he announced that the Maldives is going to be carbon-neutral within a decade. In his own words:

That’s a bold statement, but is it really such a big deal for such a small nation to achieve that? I think so, it’s not like they have a great deal of flexibility in going carbon-neutral, their choices are very limited. They import all their wheat, so it’s unlikely they can grow biofuel crops. They can’t relocate to higher ground to escape rising sea levels, because they don’t have any high ground to go to. They have no mineral resources and very little in the way of agriculture. As far as natural resources go, they have sand, sea, coral, fish, and tourists. That’s not a lot to work with.

The credit-crunch is already affecting the Maldivian tourist trade, tourism is down 14% on last year. They are calling it the ‘financial tsunami’, referring to the drop in tourism after the tsunami of December 2004.

Global warming will damage the reefs in many ways, such as bleaching through heat-stress, acidification from the extra CO2 dissolved in the ocean, and erosion from rising sea levels and extreme weather events. When the reefs suffer, the fish suffer too, so they get hit from all sides. No, small as they are, I reckon that going carbon-neutral has to be a lot harder for them than it would be for many other nations with more resources at their disposal.

President Nasheed is taking other measures to protect his nation. I’ve written before about some of the things the Maldivian government is doing to address climate change, but that’s not all of it. He’s reduced the cost of the presidency from $150 million per year to $4 million, and is selling the $7.5 million presidential yacht. He chose not to occupy the presidential palace, it may become a museum or a university. Instead, he shares an office with his secretary. Clearly he doesn’t want to squander the resources at his disposal.

The Maldivian government also recently introduced a total ban on shark fishing within their waters, extending a previous ban which only covered the tourist atolls. Sharks are top predators in the marine environment, and as such they are essential to maintaining the health of a coral reef ecosystem. The Maldivian Ministry of Fisheries is working to find alternate livelihoods for the shark-fishermen, so they will have no reason to defy the ban. This is important when you realise that these are not rich people killing sharks for fun, but just poor people trying to feed their families, and one shark-fin can be worth $100. There’s a very good discussion on shark-finning on the Southern Fried Scientist blog, but be warned, the video linked there is not for the faint of heart.

President Nasheed says “for untold fossil fuel consumption in our lifetime, we are trading our children’s place in an earthly paradise”. It would be understandable to think that the Maldives has more at stake than the rest of us, since they are such a small, island nation, but that would be totally and terribly wrong. If the world can’t save countries such as the Maldives today, we won’t be able to save places such as London, New York, or Hong Kong tomorrow. Much of Manhattan could be under water by the end of this century, and the longer it takes for us to act, the worse it will be.

The last part of President Nasheeds’ speech is directed towards the climate conference in Copenhagen in December of this year:

Well said, President Nasheed, it seems to me the world could do with more leaders like you. Perhaps if we all send a clear message to our own leaders, we might get the message through in time.

Coral Island in the Maldives

Charles Darwin was born 200 years ago, on February 12th 1809. Possibly the most famous scientist ever, his fundamental and beautiful theory of evolution has stood the test of time. Darwin formed his theory as a result of his observations during the voyage of the Beagle, but it was many years from then until he actually published his ideas.

Blogging for Darwin

It is less well-known that, in the same voyage, Charles Darwin produced another theory of evolution, not of life but of coral reefs. The formation of coral reefs was a matter of some debate at that time, in fact, one of the mission objectives for the Beagle voyage was to study their nature. Darwin’s theory was published in his book The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs in May 1842, some 6 years after the Beagle came home, and 17 years ahead of his more famous work, On the Origin of Species.

Darwin’s theory of coral reef formation is all the more remarkable for having been thought out completely before he had ever seen a reef. In his own words:

Such a statement could imply that Darwin was biased in his views, and it would be natural to believe that he sought only such evidence as supported his theory. That this is not the case becomes apparent on reading the book. Darwin was a meticulous and thorough observer, seeking as much information as he could from a wide variety of sources. The appendix of his book, fully one third as long as the main text, contains a detailed description of a large number of coral reefs, all of which he examined in the light of his theory. The book also includes a map of the world, showing the locations of all these reefs.

Darwin accumulated such a wealth of information on reef structure and history that his theory emerges as almost an inevitable consequence. He tests his theory for its ability to explain the features of a variety of reefs and atolls, as well as the distribution of different types of reef in different parts of the world.

Island and Atolls

The theory states that, in conditions where coral can survive, it will form fringing reefs (reefs close to shore) around islands and other land masses. If that land is rising over time, the reef will grow outwards as the land rises, and the fringing reef will be stable. If the land is neither rising nor sinking, the reef will expand outwards over time, forming a barrier reef (a reef enclosing an island, at some distance from it). If the land is subsiding, the coral will grow upwards in consequence, and eventually a barrier reef, then an atoll (a more or less circular reef with no land enclosed), will be formed.

Darwins evidence was drawn from a great many sources. Using plumb-lines, he measured the depth of the sea around many reefs, at different distances from the reef. This showed him a slope too steep to be consistant with reefs being formed on volcanic craters, as was thought at the time. By using soft wax on the bottom of the lead weight, he was able to gain clues to the nature of the sea-bottom. Sand and other fragments would become embedded in the wax, hard rock would simply leave impressions in it. This helped him deduce the limits of depth at which coral can grow.

Some of his soundings were as deep as 7200 feet (2160 metres), so he was definitely doing more than just scratching the surface!

Darwin noted the importance of sediment, both in forming islands as it is washed up by the waves, and in inhibiting coral growth by smothering corals or preventing them from getting a good anchorage inside lagoons. He dissected several parrotfish to investigate their stomach contents, verifying that they do indeed eat coral, pass it through their bodies, and excrete fine sand which contributes to the sediment.

Darwin saw that the types of coral on the outer margins of a reef were different from those inside the lagoon. On the outside of the reef, larger corals grow well. Inside the lagoon, corals are less vigorous. This is largely because the outside margins have the full force of the current, bringing nutrients to the coral. Inside the lagoon, the currents are weaker, so the coral does not grow as fast. He was able to identify some of the corals in the outer margins by walking the beaches after storms and looking at the new types of coral fragments that were washed ashore.

Darwin also investigated the channels that cut through many reefs. He saw that the channels tend to form on the side away from the current. Channels facing the current would tend not to accumulate as much sediment as those on the other side, so corals could take hold and grow into the channel, closing it up over time.

Darwin was able to deduce the growth-rate of corals from many sources. He used accounts of one ship that grew a 2 foot (60 cm) thickness of coral on its hull in 20 months, as well as information about ship-anchors that had become embedded in reefs over the years, and direct observations from other naturalists.

Having been led to his theory by his intuition, and having backed it up with observation, Darwin then goes on to test his theory in many ways.

Maldivian reef

Many atolls have deep lagoons, which can be best explained by upward growth at the rim while the whole of the land subsides. If the land were rising, there is no reason for the rim to rise faster than the interior, so a deep lagoon would not be formed.

Many atolls occur in the open ocean, rising steeply from depths beyond which coral cannot grow. There is no obvious explanation that could cause such a reef to rise from the depths, but if the reef were growing upwards at the same pace as the land is sinking, these isolated reefs are to be expected.

There are smaller, irregular reefs in many places, and these too can be accounted for. As a land-mass sinks and its peaks become separated islands, linear reefs may form between them, which may persist as irregular reefs long after the land subsides.

The larger reefs of the Maldives appear to be slowly separating into smaller reefs. Darwin accounts for this by noting that particularly large atolls may be breached by wide channels. Coral can grow at the edges of these channels, and if the channel is wide enough the coral growth may eventually cut the atoll in two.

Fringing reefs occur near land that is stable or rising, but atolls and barrier reefs are formed where the land is sinking. The map shows clearly that fringing reefs tend to be apart from atolls and barrier reefs. For the same reason, volcanoes should not often be close to atolls and barrier reefs, and indeed they are not.

Darwin’s theory of reef formation and development, like his other theory of evolution, has stood the test of time. Unlike his other theory, it was well received by the scientific community and the public from the moment it was published. If it had been the only thing he published, it would still be an important work. Darwin produced many other books and papers, you can find his complete works online at darwin-online.org.uk. I think I’ll read a few more, though the one on fossilised barnacles will not be near the top of my list. You can read more about Darwin and his work at Blog for Darwin, the site that inspired this post.

Happy birthday, Charles Darwin.

It’s Christmas again, and already where I live there’s been enough snow to build an army of snowmen. I like snow, but I’ve also spent a few Christmases in the Maldives, where snow is only to be found in the encyclopaedia.

The Maldives is an Islamic state, so the usual religious connotations of Christmas do not feature in the festivities. The resort islands don’t have particularly big shops, so the traditional Christmas shopping isn’t an option either. That doesn’t stop them from getting into the spirit of things and throwing a really good party, people certainly manage to have a good time. You can see how much effort they put into things by the photo at the top of this post, that’s an exquisitely-carved water-melon.

Regular readers of this blog (both of them) will know that I’ve written about the Maldives before, and the uncertain fate that awaits them at the hands of global warming and rising sea-levels. It’s easy to forget such things at this time of year, but that would be a shame. The wrapping and packaging that accompanies much of what we buy these days is a great contributor to the damage we do to our environment, and Christmas gifts are no exception. It would be great to be able to give gifts that didn’t have all that wrapping but still expressed the sentiment of caring and giving that Christmas is supposed to be about.

Gift-vouchers are one way of doing that, but some people prefer to choose the actual gift they give, and a voucher doesn’t fulfill that need. Here’s a suggestion then, how about visiting www.magnatunes.com and buying some music for someone?

You can buy music at many places on the web, of course, but magnatunes.com adds a new dimension to the game. You can listen to all the music they offer, in high quality, for free, and decide what you like before you buy. You can then download the album of your choice in full CD-quality, or in a variety of formats. You decide exactly how much you pay for it, from $5 upwards per album, and the musician gets 50% of whatever you pay. They even encourage you to make copies to give to friends so their music gets more exposure!

This is all legal, they work directly with musicians in a business model that’s very different from the way the big record labels work. They seem to be successful with it too.

So why not take the time to listen to some music for free and choose an album or two to download for someone as a gift? If you present it to them on a re-writeable CD or a USB stick you can give them music you have chosen for them with zero waste, much kinder to the environment. Seismic Anamoly is one of my personal favourites (and yes, that is how he spells it), and I also like Ambient Teknology (yes, that is how he spells it).

A parting shot, why not also put out a little Christmas gift for the birds? I cleared the snow from a section of our garden wall and put out some bird-food a few days ago. This robin has been a regular visitor ever since.

Merry Christmas!

This is Mirihi Island, in the Maldives. It’s a small island in Ari atoll. The Maldives are a chain of coral islands in the Indian Ocean, near the southern tip of India.

I’ve been to the Maldives a few times, and I learned to dive there. Having watched Jacques Cousteau bubbling his way across the screen as a kid, I actually got to do some of it myself.

I went from beginner to PADI divemaster in one year, got myself an underwater housing for my digital camera, and went for it. You can see some of the results here, the sharks at Anga Faru in Baa Atoll, a Giant Moray with a cleaner shrimp, and a nudibranch (Tambja Olivaria).

The Maldives are well-known for many reasons. The word atoll comes from Divehi, the native language. Its use in English was popularised by none other than Charles Darwin, whose theories of reef-formation are one of the lesser-known results of his travels.

Another claim to fame for the Maldives, until recently, was that they had the longest-serving leader in Asia. Maumoon Abdul Gayoom held power for 30 years. He was succeeded recently in democratic elections by Mohamed Nasheed.

Perhaps they are most famous as a holiday destination, but they also hit the headlines as one of the many nations to fall victim of the tsunami of December 26th 2004.

A more worrying claim to fame is that they are one of the island nations that is almost certainly doomed to disappear in the coming century as a result of global warming. The sea-level in the Maldives is projected to rise 50cm or more, by the end of the 21st century. Given that the Maldives is little more than one or two metres above sea-level at best, this is already a lot. But the Maldives will run into trouble long before the sea actually covers it completely.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change discusses island nations explicitly in its fourth assessment report. It has a few predictions common to all such small island nations in the report of Working Group II (“Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability“).

Flooding, from storms, will intensify. Coastal erosion will accelerate. Coral reefs and fisheries will be affected, and fresh water will become scarce. Agriculture and infrastructure will suffer as a result. Even the tourist industry, a major part of the Maldivian economy, is expected to suffer significantly as the Maldives become less attractive to tourists. These are all predictions of which the IPCC is “highly confident”.

The Maldivian government is not ignorant of these threats, and the IPCC note that their Ministry of Home Affairs has considered ways to help them address the matter. Chapter 16 of Working Group II has a list.

• Population consolidation i.e., reduction in number of inhabited islands
• Ban on coral mining
• Protection of international airport, upgrading existing airports
• Increase elevation in the future
• Reduction of human impacts on coral reefs
• Assigning protection status for more reefs
• Coastal protection of resort islands
• Reduce dependency on diving as a primary resort focus
• Economy diversification
• Explore alternate methods of growing fruits, vegetables and other foods
• Crop production using hydroponic systems
• Protection of groundwater
• Increasing rainwater harvesting and storage capacity
• Use of solar distillation
• Management of storm water
• Allocation of groundwater recharge areas in the islands
• Human resource development
• Institutional strengthening
• Research and systematic observation
• Public awareness and education

That’s not enough for the new Maldivian President, who is under no illusions about the future of his country. He clearly realises that all the Maldivians can do where they are will only buy them a little time. So, as the BBC reported recently, he is actually planning to buy a new homeland for the Maldivian people.

The photo at the top of this article was taken 4 days after the tsunami of 2004. Mirihi escaped practically unscathed on that occasion, but its future does not look good. Within my lifetime, this island, and much of the Maldives, could well be gone.