In early December we posted a story about how Biorock works and why it is being installed off the shores of Arno Atoll. Hopefully the it will provide a much needed reprieve from the erosion eating away at the island. Although this project is a first in it’s use of a sustainable, carbon neutral energy source to power the reefs accelerated growth, Biorock has been used to bring new life to communities before. See the original post with Dr. Goreau here: http://dispatch-series.com/news/biorock-a-hybrid-of-good-things-for-the-people-of-arno

In Permuteran Bali, the reefs that been healthy for thousands of years were decimated between 1998 and 2002 by a combination of coral bleaching due to climate change, fish bombing and cyanide fishing.

Fish bombs are created from a mixture of Kerosene and fertilizer, then stuffed into glass bottles where a fuse is added. When the bomb is thrown into the water it can quickly kill large amounts of fish, but the shockwave from the blast also destroys the surrounding coral.

Cyanide fishing is method used to stun and catch fish live either for aquariums for restaurants that allow their patrons to pick out the live exotic fish they would like to eat. To make the cyanide mixture the fisherman simply crushes up a few tablets of sodium cyanide and mixes it with some water in a plastic bottle. He then dives down, finds a fish and gives it a little squirt to incapacitate it. Of course the residual cyanide stays in the water killing coral reefs and algae.

In May of 2002 Dr. Thomas Goreau and his partner the late Wolf Hilbertz travelled to Permuteran to try and revitalize the area by installing Biorock. Here is the full story and the amazing results.