Reef Check

THE FIRST ITALIAN ‘REEF CHECK’ EXPEDITION

On the strength of the success achieved by the initiatives promoted by Reef Check throughout the world, in January 2006 an exploration campaign was lead by an Italian team at the Maldives.

The expedition, sponsored by Albatros Top Boat, involved the naturalist Giuseppe Baldelli, who boasts a long scientific diving experience, and the instructors of the Diving Center Albatros Top Diving of the Nika Resort, on the atoll of North Ari.
Before delving into the details of the expedition, we would like to explain what the Reef Check is. 

Reef Check is both the name of a method used to survey the health of the reef and the name of a non profit organisation set up in 2000 in California for the purpose of obtaining information on most of the world’s reef’s health. 

The reef is an environment of unmatched beauty attracting about 20 million divers each year; this is the resource the founders of Reef Check intend to involve. The message is simple: we rely on the voluntary contribution of many sea lovers to gather as much information as possible on the condition of the environment which is the object of our observations, so that as well as being a pleasurable pastime, diving activities also become a chance to enhance one’s knowledge and contribute to the protection of the reef.

The Reef Check monitoring protocol, that is the series of operations which should be carried out during the campaign, was devised so that anyone can take part in an RC team and play the role they find most suitable to their abilities: no specific skills are needed, you only need to be a sufficiently experienced diver to carry out some simple operations underwater.
As explained during the training which precedes any Reef Check survey, the members of a team must pay attention to those signs which are useful in formulating a diagnosis on the health of the reef. The survey aims at observing schools of fish and species of invertebrates (which are preyed on for fish tanks, collecting and the food market) and at inspecting the type of substratum; this allows the identification of large scale changes along two profiles situated at two different depths.

Basically this is a dive which follows a pre-determined route marked by a metered line during which observations made within an imaginary zone of 5 metres are recorded at specified intervals on a special waterproof board. 

Having ascertained their diving abilities, the Team Leader, who is usually an expert in scientific exploration, will assign tasks to each member of the team. The Team Leader also chooses the site, which should be the best within the area which is being considered, that is the site which is mostly threatened by pollution, invasive fishing, etc… but also features a covering of hard coral and plentiful of vertebrates and invertebrates.
Another important figure is the Country Co-ordinator: for each country taking part in the programme there must be a scientist who is responsible for the accuracy of the data gathered.

For a few years Albatros has been offering scientific cruises in the Maldives involving a group of Italian experts on different aspects of the tropical marine environment. The idea of proposing the island of Kudafolhudhoo as Reef Check site originated from such experience. For the Albatros diving center, the Nika resort, the RC’s country co-ordinator Carlo Nike Bianchi and Giuseppe Baldelli this explorative expedition was aimed at testing the suitability of the chosen site and any difficulty in the application of the procedures. During the first part of the mission Giuseppe Baldelli, as Team Leader, carried out an explorative survey of the area surrounding the island and identified 3 suitable sites.

The following stage was the actual campaign together with the other member of the team, Marcello Carbonara who was in charge of diving and who had been informed on the procedures to be followed.

The minimum number of members in a team is two, even when such members are expert divers. Operations lasted longer than expected but soon there was a positive sign: by the second day of the campaign several customers of the diving centre were already enquiring what those strangely equipped divers were doing and were keen to participate!

Thanks to these encouraging signals, the island of Kudafolhudhoo will hopefully soon become one of the 800 Reef Check sites of the world. The data gathered during the campaign have been processed according to the regulations specified by Reef Check and are currently been screened by the country co-ordinator who will then send them to the headquarters in California, thus confirming the subscription of the Italian team to the organisation.