Coral Garden
Non protected Area
What is Coral Garden like?
Coral Garden is a fringing coral reef located in barangay Maite, in the municipality of San Juan and bordering the Sanctuary of Maite. This area is not protected by any law, and fishing and recreational activities take place in it in a daily manner, unregulated.
Coral Garden hosts large seagrass and algal beds in its extended flat portion in between 0 to 2 meter deep, followed by a dense coral reef starting at 2 meter deep, mixed with macro algae at first, then hard coral dominated from 3 to 20 meters deep.
Substrate in Coral Garden
This part of our data is focused on the reef floor composition with a closer look at corals.
Substrate life form composition
Coral Garden is a site with a dense, complex reef with high coral cover. Considering global accumulating pressures and facing the fact that less than 30% of coral reefs in the Philippines remains in “good” condition, the coral cover in Coral Garden is an achievement in itself.
Results across the reef are showing an average of 66% Live Coral Cover* and 60% hard coral cover.
*Live Coral Cover or LCC is a common unit of measure including hard and soft corals. Refer to reference below.
Gently pass over the graph to see the percentages appear.
A bit of reference?
The most commonly used coral reef ranking method in the Philippines is originating from the nationwide assessment of coral reefs from Gomez et al., published in 1981. In that study, the initiative sampled stations located mainly in the Luzon and the Visayas regions and classified them using a four-category scale based on live coral cover (LCC). As opposed to the general presentation of coral cover which focuses on Hard coral, Live Coral Cover (LCC) is defined as the total of soft and hard coral cover. Following that study, LCC was classified as following:
0-25%
POOR
>25-50%
FAIR
>50-75%
GOOD
>75%
EXCELLENT
The results showed that 434 of the 619 stations (70.1%) that were surveyed were in “poor” and “fair” condition and only 34 (5.5%) of the stations were in “excellent” condition. (Gomez et al. 1981)
Hard coral growth form composition
Gently pass over the graph to see the percentages appear.
Hard coral health
Gently pass over the graph to see the percentages appear.
Hard coral genus diversity
We have identified 38 hard coral genus present in Coral Garden with a high abundance of Porites, Pachyseris, Acropora and Diploastrea coral colonies.
Gently pass over the graph to see the percentages appear.
Fish data in Coral Garden
Data collection is ongoing !
When can we expect to read the full report?
How about other sites?
Siquijor is a coralline island with high abundance and diversity of reefs along the coastal area. From forever flat fringing reefs, to steep walls, high current to sheltered bays, the island hosts reefs of very different ecologies, that are suitable to hosts different organisms. This is why there are so many Marine Protected Areas all around the island. Have a look at their results while we are monitoring them one after the other.
Questions?
You have any questions regarding our data collection? Would you like a copy of the report, the full media pack or information about the indicator list used? Feel free to contact us.
You would like to support our monitoring efforts?