(Contributed Photo)

By Percy Roxas

The campaign to protect and preserve the delicate marine ecosystem in Subic Bay continues as a local beach resort sustains its coral augmentation efforts through building artificial coral reefs, an environmental program it launched a few years ago.   

All Hands Beach, a beach resort company noted for its environmental conservation ethos; and Sangkalikasan, an equally well-known environmental conservation organization; are again partnering to employ the reefbud technology to create artificial coral reefs.

Reefbud is an artificial reef construction technology invented by the late Austrian geophysicist Dr. Harald Kremnitz and Filipino Benjamin Tayag Jr. 

Since the partnership between All Hands and Sangkalikasa began, they have already dropped 68 reef buds in the Subic Bay area. 

The reefbuds were placed 50 meters from the beach area to serve as marine sanctuaries to support marine life, allowing them to breed, reproduce, and grow.

“It’s amazing what this technology can do, as evidenced by what it has done to create artificial coral reefs in Subic Bay,” said Mark S. Dayrit, chairman of Brighterday Subic Limited Inc., which operates All Hands Beach.

Dayrit added: “Since we began this coral augmentation project, we have noticed how marine life in the Subic Bay waters has improved. Reef buds have revived near-shore marine ecosystems damaged by unregulated human activities.” 

Through the reef buds technology, Subic Bay will eventually become a haven of diverse marine ecosystems again, as Sangkalikasan has achieved in Boracay, where reef buds were first commercially and successfully employed, Dayrit shared.

Scientific studies on massive reefbuds projects like Boracay showed the revival of the dead marine environment of coral rubble covering hundreds of hectares. 

“Reedbuds offer a new, effective way of reviving near-shore marine eco-systems,” said Tayag, who joined Sangkalikasan head Jose Rodriguez for this year’s launching of All Hands Beach’s coral augmentation project last June 14. 

“Combined with the coral transplant technology of Sangkalikasan, it can reverse the degradation of the marine environment in the Subic Bay area,” Tayag said. FREEPORT INSIDER