Rolling in the deep
Downtown aquarium Sea Life Bangkok marked this year’s International Coastal Cleanup Day, with a range of volunteer activities under its ongoing Sustainable Aquarium Administration mission, taking staffs and volunteers took a trip to Toei Ngam beach, Sattahip district, Chonburi Province, to participate in innovative coral farming, returning the blue crab population back to the ecosystem.
Also cleaning the beach by collecting waste, the team also encouraged sustainable environmental conservation through the innovative coral farming – a joint activity with the Royal Thai Marine Corps of the Royal Thai Navy, with Sea Life Bangkok’s divers diving down to plant the newly farmed corals by themselves. The new method of coral farming uses fossil rocks cast with cement as the farming base instead of PVC pipes. This has proved to be the most sustainable and natural way of conserving the coral, as the cement rock is degradable through seawater erosion. Thus, these coral farming bases will not create additional marine waste, once the corals start to grow out of them.
Another activity saw the volunteers working to return the blue crab population back to its natural ecosystem. With an ever-increasing number of marine animals caught each year for consumption and selling, their populations are dramatically decreasing. The blue crabs, in particular, have been caught in abundance by trawl nets, traps, and crab trawls.
Find out more at Sea Life Bangkok by visiting the lower levels of Siam Paragon. Or check out www.sealifebangkok.com and Facebook/SEALIFEBangkokOceanWorld
