Coral reefs are exceptionally biodiverse and human dependence on their ecosystem services is high.
AF performs annual Reef Health Monitoring (RHM) at Bawah Reserve and on Kiabu, in coordination with the Marine Park Authority. Each monitoring has a defined timeframe to gather temporal data on the health condition of our coral reefs.
Each year AF compares the results with the previous year’s findings to evaluate the marine ecosystem health and document the progress of our programme. The output consists of important data such as coral cover percentage, coral resilience, coral fish population, coral fish diversity, biomass, and megabenthos.
Reefs experience high levels of direct and indirect anthropogenic pressures and provide a good indicator of ocean health around the coasts, climate change, and ocean acidity. Monitoring coral reef status, changes and trends better inform science, management, and policy, but the projected collapse of our world reef systems within a few decades makes the provision of accurate and actionable monitoring data urgent.
