The small boat set off from a tiny island in the Western Pacific Ocean, its destination only a few hundred feet away. Its cargo was dozens of chunks of concrete that each weighed 60 pounds, had a textured surface and evoked a white lotus leaf.<\/p>\n
One by one, the crew tossed the pieces overboard. Then three divers descended 20 feet to the seabed with nuts, bolts and steel rods. As they began fastening the concrete pieces on top of each other, hundreds of curious damsel fish gathered around them and three green turtles circled nearby.<\/p>\n
Within an hour, the structure was complete: an artificial reef standing 3 feet tall and 10 feet wide.<\/p>\n
This construction, on a recent Thursday morning near Pom Pom Island, Malaysia, was part of an effort to rejuvenate a small section of the Coral Triangle, which covers a wide section of Southeast Asia and is the most biodiverse marine region in the world.<\/p>\n
Pom Pom Island lies off the northeastern coast of Borneo, an area where fishermen have for decades used homemade dynamite to kill schools of fish. The practice, which has long been illegal in Malaysia, is common among local fisherman, who say they cannot earn enough money from the smaller catches they make using conventional methods.<\/p>\n
But miles of coral reef have become collateral damage.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe seabed here is like a desert and this is one structure bringing life back,\u201d said Robin Philippo, the managing director of the Tropical Research and Conservation Center, the conservation group that installed the artificial reef.<\/p>\n
Over the past two years, the group has installed more than 60 of these structures around the island, each weighing about half a ton and costing about $5,000. The corrugated surfaces allow corals to take hold, while the gaps between the individual pieces provide shelter from predators for marine life.<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore the structures were placed, it was just rubble on the seabed and no fishes,\u201d said Alvin Chelliah, the chief programs officer at Reef Check Malaysia, a nonprofit. \u201cBut now, we can see damsel fishes, juvenile groupers, butterfly fishes are making a comeback at the artificial reef structures.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, he warned, \u201cthe concrete reef is not a silver bullet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Concrete reefs are less likely to support marine life that typically drills into natural reef surfaces like boring giant clams, Mr. Chelliah said.<\/p>\n