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Rose Garden will soon become a Marine Protected Area
Posted on Jun 16, 2007 at 01:28pm
The Rose Garden will soon become an official community reserve. The Rose Garden is an area in the lagoon with a high percentage of live coral cover and marine life and has long been designated as a no-fishing zone by local fisherman who recognized its good state of health and tourism potential. The laws required to protect the area are almost in place thanks to the work of FIMIHARA (Ifaty and Mangily village fishing associations) and ReefDoctor. Once the laws are in place tourists and dive operators will be charged a small fee for visiting the site.
Mooring buoys will be installed, to prevent anchor damage to the coral, and an on-site guardian will be employed to ensure people respect these laws, which includes no fishing. The laws will also allow offenders to be fined. These laws will be of huge benefit to the area which sees a great deal of destruction through poor tourism practices, such as tourists treading on and pirogues dropping anchor on the coral.
The Rose Garden is so named as foliose coral makes up a large percentage of the area. This is a particularly fragile coral and breaks very easily. The Rose Garden is only a small site and so will not be acting as a sink as is the aim of many marine protected areas, but will hopefully work in a small way to improve the reef by adding value to the reef system for the local people. The funds generated from the admission charge will be split between Ifaty and Mangily villages and go towards
