Conservation in the Community

(note: I finally had the time to finish two posts in the same day, so please take a look at "Back to School" first)

All the work Coral Cay does to protect Southern Leyte's reefs would be useless if the island's communities weren't also on board with the idea of conserving these incredible places.  That's why the work of the Education Officer, who goes out to communities (especially schools) around Sogod Bay to teach about how special reefs are and why we need to protect them, is so important.  I was fortunate to have the opportunity to get involved in this education work when one school came to our base for a day of learning through fun activities!

Our awesome education officer, far right, greeting a group of students,
parents, and teachers upon their arrival at base.

The students were divided into groups which moved around to a handful of different stations: puzzles, scuba dunk tank, snorkeling, fish identification, and--the most delicious--edible coral polyp construction!

I began the morning supervising and teaching at the puzzle table with another volunteer.  Students unscrambled a couple sentences about the importance of reefs as animals' habitats and to humans, and also deciphered a coded message about the dangers of dynamite fishing and anchors to reefs.

They also tried to piece together a very difficult puzzle into the shape of a turtle:

I had a little time after this to investigate the stations other volunteers were working at.  At the "scuba dunk tank," kids got to put a mask on and a regulator in their mouths, then stick their faces in a container full of sea creatures while breathing underwater.

All the kids got to go on a snorkel led by a volunteer to see how what they were learning about played out on the real reef:

Now to the best station ever...  I got to explain to the students the anatomy of a coral polyp and what happens when a coral is bleached, and then let them go wild constructing their own coral polyps out of marshmallows, icing, and sprinkles!

A cookie serves as the calcium carbonate skeleton of the coral, a marshmallow as the polyp's "body,"
sprinkles are zoozanthelae (algae) in the icing "skin," and long marshmallows are the tentacles on top.

At the end of the day, a volunteer dressed up as an anemone damselfish to the absolute delight of the children:

Quite an adventure for us volunteers as well!

Unfortunately very hot for the guy inside the suit, but the kids loved it.

Thanks to the organizational skills of our Education Officer and the hard work of all the staff and volunteers, the day was a great success!

Back to School

(Follow along as we take a journey back in time, to seven weeks ago when I arrived in Napantao, Coral Cay's base in the Philippines!)

I've been learning a lot this year, but it's been a long time since I've been in a formal class or taken an exam...or had been, until I started SDP!  SDP=Science Development Program, the core of my Coral Cay Conservation experience in the Philippines.  Before participating as a member of a survey team, all the new volunteers have to learn how to identify just about everything they see underwater.

(All underwater photos courtesy of my fellow volunteers)

We spent two weeks studying and being tested on our knowledge of corals, fish, invertebrates, algae, and assorted other things, and practicing identifying underwater our "target species" for surveys.

Coral Cay uses volunteers to conduct a couple different types of surveys: "baseline" surveys to do basic mapping of the underwater environments off the coast of Southern Leyte, and "MPA surveys" in particularly diverse or at-risk areas where communities are interested in setting up a Marine Protected Area on their reef.  The same type of survey is used to monitor the MPAs regularly to see how they are faring under their new protection.

A map of Southern Leyte, painted on one of our walls, showing Sogod Bay in the center.

A close-up of San Fran and CCC's base.  White dots represent  MPAs.

Locals serve as the "Bantai Dagat," or "Protectors of the Reef" for each MPA, and some are protected better than others from fishing and other harmful acts.

We had a "protector," too, at base: our puppy, Bantai!

We also learned how to do Reef Check surveys, which are similar to MPA surveys but less specific to CCC's conservation work.  (Reef Check surveys are conducted all around the world by groups of volunteers to monitor reefs, often in one-day events or on longer expeditions.)

Because Coral Cay has been at this same base for a few years, and was on the other side of Sogod Bay previously, much of the area nearby has already been surveyed, and so we would ride the boat for an hour or more to sites we are now working on.  (We survey only 10 to 50 meters by 5 meters on each dive, so at least a couple of days are necessary at any one site.)  Our boat was out of commission for a couple weeks but fortunately ready to go again shortly after I finished SDP, so I got to spend a few days out on it doing real conservation work!  I also helped to paint the name and Coral Cay logo on before we put the refurbished boat back in the water.

I was covered in blue paint for days.

The boat in action.

Volunteering with CCC was the most incredible experience, and I already miss everything about being there.  The sunsets, for one, were amazing: