Radical Relocation

SAFANIYA, November 24, 2009 - -- In the first operation of its kind in Saudi Arabia, the Environmental Protection Department (EPD) and the Offshore Projects Division of the Northern Area Projects Department (OPD/NAPD) sponsored a coral relocation project in Safaniya.

A unique coral assemblage was discovered less than 100 meters from the beach in the Safaniya offshore field during an environmental-impact assessment for a pipe-laying project. The coral community was in the path of a trench to be dredged for pipe. The corals would have been destroyed during dredging. In the past, mitigation measures were taken to minimize such impacts, but those did not compensate for direct habitat losses from the dredging.

“Recognizing that offset measures will not provide useful compensation for the loss of this coral assemblage,” said EPD marine environmental specialist Yusef Fadlalla, “we recommended to OPD/NAPD a radical mitigation measure that would give these threatened corals a chance to survive. We decided the corals have to be moved to a safe area.”

EPD recommended Reef Ball Australia and Reef Ball USA, organizations with extensive experience in coral relocation and artificial reef development, to move the corals. OPD/NAPD project engineer Kahsif Saeed coordinated and supported the work carried out by the Reef Ball consultants.

A preliminary survey was followed by an intensive three-week campaign in which more than 500 small and large colonies of corals were moved to a nursery area about 700 meters from their original location and a similar distance away from the beach. Relocated with the corals were many small fishes and invertebrates. The operation coincided with the breeding season of cuttlefish, which did not hesitate to lay their egg masses on hard natural surfaces as well as many of the artificial surfaces provided by the concrete coral bases, diver gear, transfer baskets and coral colony tags found in the nursery area. The biological observations made of cuttlefish breeding behavior were a coincidental benefit of the coral relocation operation.

An ecological corridor was also formed by moving some coral colonies along a line that connected the nursery area to the original location in order to expand the range of the corals and to promote re-establishment of corals in the impacted area.

The corals of this unique near-shore assemblage in Safaniya would not be alive today were it not for the relocation initiative by EPD.