Seaweed Collection

  • Seaweed collection is one of the a major threats to reef areas. Fisher folk, mostly women,collect tonnes of seaweeds every day around the islands, damaging the corals. They break the corals while collecting seaweeds.
  • In Gulf of Mannar Marine National Park, both live and dead corals are found together in the shallow areas of the islands. The seaweed collectors mechanically plug or scrap the seaweeds attached to the dead corals and so the collectors remove the entire seaweed along with dead corals. Due to the removal of seaweed along with dead corals, the new coral recruits attached to dead corals are also removed along with seaweeds.
  • Several people (more than 10 people) involve in seaweed collection in an area at a time and so the live coral damage is very severe and the collectors also disturb the reef environment due to their activities, causing increased turbidity and sedimentation in the reef area. Due to this, sediment deposition on the live coral colonies is more which leads into coral mortality.
  • The anchoring of boat on the reef area also causes very severe mechanical damage to the live coral reefs continuously.

  

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