Creating Coral Trees

This year we have added many new structures to Atoll Marine Centre’s coral restoration site, including these coral trees which each hold 50 fragments which will later be out-planted to our surrounding reefs.

Inspired by the Coral Restoration Foundation, we built our first tree structure in March this year, alongside our Coral Restoration Volunteers Henry and Josephine, and after monitoring the success we have now added 2 more to the garden.

The structures are easy to make and install and need no complicated equipment – we can buy what we need from our local hardware store and then build them in our dive centre, making them ideal for restoration in remote places such as our island. 

Our current Coral Restoration Volunteers, Sophie and Alex, worked together to build the new structures, measuring, sawing and drilling holes into the PVC pipes before assembling. Each structure has a float attached to the top, which so far have all been recycled from beach cleans, ghost net removals and found floating on the ocean while on our boat, and a concrete block at the bottom, which again have been recycled from past AMC projects which have since been upgraded.