| After eight years of monitoring the health and growth of the global coral reefs Reef check is now one of the most extensive ecological surveys in the world. Based on voluntary work the Reef Check network includes teams in more than 50 countries and since last year Sudan is one of them.
From 4th to13th of June 2004 the first Reef Check in Sudan was held and organized by Constanze Conrad and Coral Reef Care, from the Netherlands, and for the first time information about the current status of the coral reefs in the Sudanese Red Sea were gathered.
"The Sudanese Red Sea is simply the most beautiful and best preserved in the world and is the Red Sea at its best! Sudan is one of the few places left on the planet that remains untouched by man."
This sentence taken from a travel brochure shows unfortunately not the reality. In general, Reef Check surveys have found the reefs in Sudan to be in much worse condition than expected.
But how come the reefs in this area, nearly untouched by tourism are suffering so much? The results confirmed that Sudan and Sudanese reefs have severe problems with pollution, uncontrolled diving industry, over-fishing and anchoring damages.
Not a single mooring buoy is installed in whole entire Sudanese Red Sea. Besides diving boats big container ships, tankers, ferry boats etc. are anchoring close to or directly on the reefs.
In the three reefs checked (Wingate - Police Station, Gota Wingate and Sanganeb) obvious signs of human impact, such as garbage, anchor damage, sewage water and outfall from boats were recorded.
The reefs also showed evidence of heavy over-fishing, with many species of high value fish and shellfish completely missing. The absence of large fish such as the grouper creates an ecological imbalance. Combined with other factors this can lead to coral reefs being overgrown by algae.
In addition to monitoring, the team worked in raising public and government awareness, one of the main issues, which has to be followed on and practiced in Sudan. Public has to be taught intensively in the ecological values of coral reefs and simple solutions to the problems threatening their health and the health of their reefs have to be found.
Surveys on several reefs, not only in Sudan and the Red Sea, will continue in 2005. We all need to work together to continue successful coral reef conservation.
Reef Check likes to send special thanks to all volunteers who helped making this activity a success!
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