The value of a multi-sectoral approach to coral restoration in the Pacific of Costa Rica

The value of a multi-sectoral approach to coral restoration in the Pacific of Costa Rica

Theme 3: Protection and restoration of marine and coastal ecosystems to ensure sustainable and equitable management

Juan José Alvarado;   https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2620-9115
Centro de Investigación en Ciencias del Mar y Limnología (CIMAR), Escuela de Biología, Centro de Investigación en Biodiversidad y Ecología Tropical (CIBET), Universidad de Costa Rica, San Pedro, 11501-2060 San José, Costa Rica; juan.alvarado@ucr.ac.cr

Culebra Bay is a small inlet in the North Pacific of Costa Rica, known for its high biological diversity. Due to these attributes, it has been a place where tourism and fishing activities have been strongly developed, which has probably had an impact on the health of the marine-coastal ecosystems in the area. Since the early 2000s, a decrease in live coral cover (LCC) and the integrity of coral reefs has been observed, going from 60% of LCC in the 90s to 5% in the 2010s. Due to this strong loss, a public-private alliance was established between the hotel sector, government, academia, international cooperation, and civil society to restore the coral reefs in the area. The Culebra Reefs Gardens project was then born in 2019, based on a scientific learning component, followed by continuous monitoring and volunteer participation. In the first phase of the project, personnel were trained and then monitoring of the most suitable type of structure to work in the bay was launched, as well as the species to be used. Coral growth and survival rates were measured, as well as operating costs of each structure. In a second stage, the experimental planting of fragments of the Pocillopora coral was carried out where a high growth rate and survival greater than 90% was observed. The third stage was scaling up, based on the first two, and worked with a greater number of nurseries fixed to the substrate (“spider” type) in various places in the bay, and with a greater planting of corals. In this stage, monthly monitoring of live coral coverage, coral growth, diversity of fish associated with the structures, as well as physical-chemical parameters of the water such as nutrients and temperature are carried out. Throughout the almost 5 years of the project, the results are positive, except for the ENSO 2023 event that causes high coral bleaching. Our nurseries showed a notable recovery after 3 months of temperatures dropping to less stress values. The joint work of this public-private alliance has demonstrated that synergistic cooperation in science-based conservation activities can generate good results for the ecosystem health of the reefs of the North Pacific of Costa Rica.