Coral Reef Transplantation In Celukan Bawang: An Effort To Build A Balanced Ecosystem

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  • Celukan Bawang, Kecamatan Gerokgak, Buleleng

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Coral Reef Transplantation In Celukan Bawang: An Effort To Build A Balanced Ecosystem.

Every living thing is reciprocally related to its environment. As with a credo "all actions are useful". In order to have a balanced ecosystem, conservation of coral reefs in Celukan Bawang has been carried out. Even it requires a lot of time, complicated management to right utilization, but it is worth it. Now a Line Intercept Transect method for coral reefs transplant has been carried out because of the conservation program.

Conducted by some experts, this conservation method was begun by identifying 30 benthic categories. There are 14 families of coral reefs that divided into 41 orders and 96 types of coral that were are found in Celukan Bawang’s benthic zone. From preliminary data, it found that the transplantation process had been carried out in order to expand the area and enrich biodiversity. Now, various types of coral reefs has become a home for fish, both target fish, and indicator fish. The target fish or ornamental fish is often caught for its economical reason.  

While indicator fish has a function as a parameter to indicate whether the surrounding coral reef ecosystem good or bad.

Coral reef transplantation aimed to rehabilitate the aquatic environment. Not only in Celukan Bawang and Northern Bali area, but transplants are also carried out in Nusa Penida and the Karangasem Regency. 

The process of coral reef transplantation sometimes takes time and needs several stages. All the implementations have been done even the time and action must be sustainable. The first stage in the transplant process is preparing the planting media. The media are dead coral and substrate mixture. Dead coral is taken from sea waters, selected, and adapted to the structure so it becomes a home for coral seeds.  

Substrate dough is a mixture of cement, iodine salt, and water. After mixing, the coral seeds are planted in dead corals and then glued with the substrate. After the seeds are ready to be planted, tagging or marker that contains the information about the coral are given. Here, the type of coral and date its planted into the waters are written clearly. 

Later on, these coral seeds will grow and enlarge. When ecosystems with certain structures are formed, fish and other marine biota will complete the harmonious balance of the aquatic environment. There are 16 families and 80 species of marine life have been found in Celukan Bawang water. Based on scientific research reports, 51% of good coral reef ecosystem are live in Celukan Bawang water.  

Besides coral reefs, fish and other marine biota that have been found, there are other biota that have not been identified but still have benefits in maintaining the balance of nature. So, a continuous steps are needed to improve each other’s life.