Abstract Summary
October 2017 saw the start of Colombia's largest coral reef rehabilitation project via coral gardening. The project objective is to upscale coral reef restoration actions in the San Andres, Providencia and Santa Catalina Archipelago to accelerate the natural recovery of intervened reefs, promote adaptation to climate change, anticipate the direct effects of anthropogenic origin, and reach a great social impact. In its first phase, eight nurseries have been built with the capacity to grow at least 16,000 fragments of coral reef species. The initial stock is 13463 fragments of four species of hard corals, three soft corals and two sponges. Twelve months after stocking, the average fragment survival (86% ± 3 SE) and the increase in ecological volume (EV) recorded (>300% of their initial size) are within the reference values for reef restoration projects in the Caribbean. Construction, installation, stocking and monitoring of nurseries and corals was conducted by more than 50 people representing different relevant social actors, aimed at developing the local capacity in coral gardening and the monitoring of coral reefs in the archipelago. We are also piloting the first payment for ecosystem services scheme for marine areas in Colombia which seeks to offer an alternative livelihood to artisanal fishermen committed to enforce local coral reef protection, reduce local coral reef threats, and assist with the project´s coral rehabilitation activities within voluntary conservation agreements (VCA) that are being designed following the Open Standards for the Practice of Conservation. In three years, we expect to see that the joint protection of selected sites with the addition of ca. 5,000 nursery-grown coral colonies per hectare, lead to a 10% increase in the live coral cover, fish biomass, aesthetic value and structural complexity and overall health at intervened coral reefs within the Seaflower MPA.
