6 month coral growth results

CORAL GROWTH RESULTS OF 2022

BRANCH Coral Foundation wishes everyone all the best for this year!
In this news article we would like to focus on the coral growth results from 2022. Half a year ago, even before the establishment of BRANCH Coral Foundation, the first corals were installed into our nursery trees located at Blue Bay Beach. 

In June, 2022, 300 coral fragments were saved from seven different macroalgae-infected colonies from the reef of Curaçao. The average size of each fragment was around 11.5 centimeters. These fragments were taken care of weekly by a team of volunteers, dive staff from Dive Division and Marine Biologist (and Director of our foundation), Max van Aalst.  

After six months of growth and care, it was time to measure the fragments. From the initial 300 corals, 298 survived (>99%). Unfortunately two fragments were lost after one of the hurricanes that passed Curaçao in September of last year. Luckily most corals survived thanks to the relocation to safer depths during rough hurricanes.
The average growth of the corals is now 42 centimeters per fragment. Which means that in just six months our corals grew more than 4.5 times their initial size (See attached excel sheet)! That is a greater result than we could have even imagined. In the photo gallery on our website you can see the difference in size yourself! Can you spot your adopted Coral? Let us know!

Soon, part of the fragments will be taken out of the nursery and given a permanent home to thrive once again on the coral reef. Other fragments will be used to fill our nurseries and grow the next batch of corals to be planted out.

All this work would not have been possible without your generous support. We are extremely grateful for every coral adoption parent, sponsor, partner and volunteer. We wish to continue and increase our efforts to protect and rehabilitate our precious coral reef ecosystems and to educate the community about the importance of this fragile ecosystem. 

For 2023 we have lots of exciting things on the agenda already: More nurseries, more locations, more classes to teach, more partners, our own PADI coral restoration specialty course and the arrival of our first interns that will help us while learning valuable skills for their future careers.

Do you want to be a part of our mission too? Do you want to adopt a coral or have your own coral nursery at your house reef? Or do you want to gain coral restoration experience through an internship or with our PADI BRANCH Coral Restoration Specialty Course? Send us a message!

Let this year be a great year for our coral reef,
BRANCH Coral Foundation
www.branchcoralfoundation.com
branchcoralfoundation@gmail.com
max@branchcoralfoundation.com
+5999 5161996
Insta: BRANCH Coral Foundation
Curacao Bank: Vidanova nr. 3001231106, i.n.o. STG BRANCH CORAL
NL Bank: NL69 ASNB 0772 9213 34, i.n.o. M. F. W. van Aalst
Paypal: maxvanaalst5@gmail.com