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Solomon Islands
January and February 2008
Kolumbanggara Volcano
In the new year, we returned
to an area of islands and reefs that we have studied since 2000.
Our study site here is a platform reef,
formerly known as 'One Tree' Island because of the proud, single silver
tree that once stood upon a pile of rocks.
The tree disappeared between 2000 and 2002, and the
reef has now been redubbed 'No Tree'.
A year ago, on 2nd April 2007, close to
eight o'clock in the morning, there was an earthquake of magnitude 8.1
whose epicenter lay just 20 nautical miles to the southeast of One Tree.
Most islands in the western province of the Solomons shook to
their core.
Nobody could
stand upright during the earthquake and several of the aftershocks.
A few minutes later, a tsunami radiated out from the underwater
epicenter, killing over 50 people and removing entire villages from the
shore.
Houses floated in
the sea, gardens were ruined and landslides wrecked coastlines.
 Two islands that we know intimately, Simbo and
Ranongga, were affected deeply.
Simbo dropped a few metres lower into the sea, while one side of
Ranongga and its fringing reef was elevated by about four metres.
Beaches, which provide access by boat to the communities that
live there, are now landlocked by exposed
Porites boulders and other
corals.
We reunited with friends and listened to their
stories of watching the sea recede just before the tsunami struck, how
they survived the experience - one friend was carried to the top of a
tall coconut tree by the wave while he watched his boat and outboard
engine sink way below him - and how some did not survive.
 On the reef study site, we repeated our Vitareef
and transect methodologies for the fourth time in eight years.
We have watched this reef struggle.
In 2000, we collected data on corals while they were almost
literally bleaching in front of our eyes.
The bleaching, caused by elevated sea temperatures due to global
warming, affected mostly the table
Acropora colonies on the reef
top.
When we returned in
2002 we found their skeletons.
The rest of the reef had recovered reasonably well.
However, the effects of the bleaching event were compounded by
the political situation in the Solomon Islands
at the time.
A coup, which
forced us to leave the country in a hurry as violence spread to the
western province, led islanders to turn to the reefs as a source of
income.
In 2006, the reef was in decline again.
Another bleaching event was in process during our stay and crown
of thorns infestations had broken out on the next-door reef.
A slow degradation of the reef
systems in the area had also become evident due to sedimentation pouring
off the nearby logging stations on Kolumbanggara island.
In other words, multiple effects had taken their toll over time.
Two years later, the reef is a shadow
of its former self, as are most reefs in the area.
The violence of the earthquake toppled over large areas of living
coral, killing most of them.
The only unaffected patches of reef are where
Porites boulders brace each
other from the impact close to the reef top.
The slopes are now mostly graveyards of rubble and boulders.
 A diverse fish population still hovers over the reef.
We even sighted a dugong.
But without a healthy substrate and with continued economic
pressure on the reef ecosystem as communities struggle to find funds to
reconstruct their villages, the future of these reefs is hanging in the
balance.
Juvenile groupers
and napoleon wrasse are sold in the market at Gizo.
Nearby lies
Jari
Island, one of the most
diverse reefs on the planet in terms of reef fish species.
Some of our crew snorkeled there to find the substrate, one that
we knew as an oasis of spectacular corals, indescribably destroyed.
The fish remain, but again for how long?
Immersive Media TeamWe spent weeks diving the reef, collecting our data
set, documenting it in still images and Hi-Definition video and tracking
it with our eleven-lens 360�
underwater camera system, Immersive Media. The results of our
consecutive studies will be presented this July at the International
Coral Reef Symposium in Florida, USA.
But returning here in a few years to continue our work at the
site will be the only way to tell if the reef recovers its strength and
becomes repopulated by new coral colonies or if the system collapses
altogether.
Reunion with Former PCRF Officer Eddie
Zuna's family in Gizo.
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