Border Sessions invites you to co-create the upcoming 7th edition. Over 20 labs, a conference with 40+ sessions, a hackathon, a dinner and much more… We prepare this together with you. Send the organization your profile to start the conversation.

On June 15th, CoralGardening will participate in the Coral Reef Engineering Lab, where two of our questions will be presented to all kinds of experts in order to find a solution together. Do you want to use your creativity to restore coral reefs? Come and join us.

It is no mystery that coral reefs are under great threat. The global decline of coral reefs puts the food and income source, as well as the coastal protection of hundreds of thousands of people at risk. Our mission is to turn the tide. We would like to challenge people from all different fields and backgrounds to join our Coral Reef Engineering Lab and find innovative and groundbreaking solutions for the deterioration of coral reefs worldwide. We believe that by combining the power of diversity we can couple old ideas to new insights, form novel alliances overnight and tackle the coral reef issue in a non-conventional way.

During the lab we challenge you to step into a real-life case to find solutions for coral reefs. All ideas that are formed during the workshop will be taken into consideration for real-life implementation. So are you an artist, ecologist, engineer, architect, banker, farmer, teacher, in short, a human being? And would you like to use your creativity and knowledge for the protection of one of the most diverse ecosystems on the planet? We challenge you to submerge yourself in the colorful world of coral reefs and join our mission!

We are challenging all kinds of experts to invent a new way to create artificial reefs.

The post We challenge you to participate in the Coral Reef Engineering Lab appeared first on CoralGardening.

In the afternoon I joined them at a flower building workshop. I was feeling kid again for a few hours. Bending metal, sculpting with chicken wire and “paper mache’ing” with concrete and cloths.

After the workshop Frank an I started chatting. I wanted to know more about coral and artificial reefs. I just had no clue yet what I could offer the project. Time passed by. Frank and Vera went back to Holland to raise money for the project. I started doing my instructor course and we kind of lost touch. Till in early February Frank and Vera came back to the island and I bumped into them again during another Eco Day. I joined another workshop and I guess I had some smart ideas how to improve the project. That’s when things started to roll.

Since then I started to become more and more part of CoralGardening. I have a background in Engineering and Frank and Vera on regular basis throw constructional problems at me what is fun for me to solve. We have hours long brainstorm sessions about how we can improve the project and what we can change. At the same time Frank and Vera educate me more about coral and building artificial reefs.

But not just that. Frank and Vera inspired people to think further. Building an artificial reef is cool and fun to do, but it is very small scale. In my opinion this is not the only solution to solve bigger issues like coral bleaching and climate change. Inspired by the flower building project, I started thinking about what I can do to improve our ocean. Personally I think that awareness, educating people about what is happening to our ocean and our world is important. Based on that thought I’m now working on setting up a presentation for Thai school kids to educate them what is happening with our ocean. And hopefully soon I will be giving this presentation throughout different cities in Thailand!

What inspires you? What can you do to improve our ocean? Think about it for 5 min. Talk about it with your friends. It doesn’t have to be big, every little bit helps!!

Thanks Frank and Vera for all the fun and inspiration so far. Hopefully much more to come!!

The post Volunteer in the spotlight: Emiel appeared first on CoralGardening.

We signed up for the activities of the New Heaven Reef Conservation Program (NHRCP). In the morning we attended a lecture from Pau about mineral accretion devices. These are systems that place a very weak current on a metal structure that is placed under water. This current accelerates the natural process of calcium carbonate depositing on the iron structure. The coral grows faster and is better resistant to diseases. And it also prevents the iron from rusting. CoralGardening is looking forward to connecting the Coral-Aid system to the CoralGarden.

After the lecture we dive to pick up broken pieces of coral and attach these on the metal constructions. Fun work! To get a little impression of how this works look at our video at the bottom of this page.

The post World Ocean Day 2017 on Koh Tao appeared first on CoralGardening.

EcoDay starts with a number of presentations in the morning. Frank gives a presentation about the importance of coral reefs and what you can do to protect these. The audience reacts enthusiastically to the presentation. After the presentation, a large group of people are inspired to participate in the planting of the flower in the afternoon.

After Frank, Mathieu, of the organization Blueming, gives a short presentation about reducing the use of single-use plastic. How can you contribute to this? This is often part of our presentation. It is interesting to hear this from someone else sometimes.

The last presentation is by Marcel of Get Involved. He talks about the use of social media in major cultural changes. It is important to have a positive attitude. “Blame and shame” does not work. The effect of blame and shame it creates a negative atmosphere, people will not like you for it and eventually people will not want to work with you anymore. In addition, subsequent messages are often not very constructive. The trick is to focus more on people who already made a positive change. When you put them in the spotlights, social media often gives you many more positive and constructive responses. Plus that people who want to change can see that change is possible. This creates a platform for these people to ask questions to those who have already made positive changes.

The last point is: Walk the Talk! People do not do what you say, they do what you do! Be the change you want to see and inspire others.

In the afternoon we get started with the flower. We have about 20 people to help us to plant the flower. Vera gives a briefing on how to put the flower together. Also the task of who does what is discussed and last who takes what part of the flower under water.

Due to the waves on the west side of the island, we go by taxi to Hin Wong Bay, the east side of the island. The roads are constructed differently here than in Europe. Here are no hairpin bends to steadily climb the hill, the roads go just straight up. A steep and challenging road, a roller coaster is nothing compared to these rides. The car stales a few times before we reach the top of the mountain. Safe at the top we drive down the other side of the island.

On the other side of the island we load all the stuff from the taxi onto the big boat that brings us to the divesite. With the small boat of Davy Jones Locker, the different parts of the flower are brought from the big boat to the Coral Garden. The parts of the flower are sunk 1 by 1 to the bottom. The small parts are simply taken by divers to the bottom. The heavy parts are brought down with liftbags or ropes. For most divers, this is a new and interesting experience. But equally exciting. Most divers are not used to diving with their hands full. Does no one drop a part unintentionally? Or does no one forget that if he/she lets go of a part, that he/she suddenly has a lot more positive buoyant? Fortunately, everyone is well instructed and everything goes well!

The only thing that is less fortunate is the visibility underwater. As the flower is placed on a sandy place, it is difficult to not disturb the soil. The water is getting a little more silted around the flower. This is not a problem for planting the flower, but unfortunately, this is not good for making pictures.

As mentioned in a previous newsletter, the first flower was thrown over by the strong currents and landslides that occurred close by last January. During this dive we will also try to restore this flower again. The flower is firmly nailed to the ground with a number of anchor hooks. In this way she will definitely be ready for the next monsoon season.

The operation goes smooth! We are proud of all our volunteers and want to thank them for their efforts. We also want to thank our donators who have made this wonderful result possible by their donations. Without donations for the materials we could not realize this flower. Check out the video of placing the flower here, and subscribe to our YouTube Channel to receive a notification when we made our next video.

The post An exciting and fun event: planting a flower in the CoralGarden appeared first on CoralGardening.

There have been encounters with whale sharks at various locations for several weeks. A mother and young, or two at the same time, that also “talk” to each other and even one shark with a rope around his tail, which was removed by a brave diver. In short, we also wanted to see a whale shark. We took a day off and went on an excursion. It’s always a gamble, we did not count on actually seeing one, as the encounters are rare. In the 13 years I’ve been diving, I’ve seen just one.

At 6 o’clock we left on a fully loaded boat. We arrived on the dive site after about 2 hours. There is another boat present. We tie our boat to the boat line, and immediately a small group of divers jumps overboard.

When everything has come to a rest, we enter the water. We are not the only ones who have come to see if the stories about whale shark sightings are true. There are dozens of other divers. It’s a real whale shark Mania. But I cannot deny participating myself, otherwise I would not be here.

I enjoy the beautiful coral and the many fishes, until somebody pulls my fin. I look around and it appears to be Vera. She points upwardsenthusiastically . And yes, it wouldn’t have been the first time to happen, but I almost missed the whale shark that swam over me. It’s a small one. Men usually have some difficulty assessing sizes, but I try nonetheless: 3 to 4 meters. It is an amazing view seeing him / her swimming on a light background and accompanied by a lot of remorse / suction fish. You become quiet and before you know it, he / she has passed you. We continue with our dive.
As mentioned, there are quite a lot of divers. You may have seen a group of fish or birds that suddenly change flight or swimming direction. Well, the divers act like that too. Suddenly they all go to the right, a little less coordinated than the fish, but still. You start to suspect another whale shark. And indeed, he appears between all the bubbles and divers. Divers respond in different ways, some spear forward with their GoPro on their selfie stick, as if they want to pinch the shark. Others keep calm in their place and just look. I choose for the last, not wanting to interfere with this mighty beast. I wonder what the whale shark thinks about all the divers and their bubbles. He swims right towards Vera, she moves aside and the shark calmly passes. So there’s at least 2 whale sharks! And one of them was rescued from that rope on his tail recently. The scar is clearly visible. I’m happy knowing that he survived. A tribute to the responisble diver, removing that cannot have been easy.

When we emerge, we see about a dozen boats have arrived. A couple of diving boats but also some speed boats. While we rest on ours, we suddenly hear a scream! One of the whale sharks has emerged and swims on the surface. The boat next to us almost rolls over, as everyone hurries to the side to get another glimps of this animal. It’s intereseting to see how the shark behaves. It’s going straight towards the divers and snorklers, which of course bolt away. Then it turns towards one of the boats, and in his curiosity almost hits the camera of a guy on the stern. What a sight.

We can enter the water for a second dip after an hours’ rest. And we meet him again! It’s a great dive: great clarity, beautiful coral, many beautiful schools of batfish, baracuddas, groupers and of course, at least 2 whale sharks! It could not have been better. Isn’t diving great?

The post Whale Shark Mania on Koh Tao appeared first on CoralGardening.