DIVE HAPPY

Vietnam's government is about to embark on a huge artificial coral reef generation program, using sunken decommissioned boats from its plans to halve the Vietnamese fishing fleet by 2010

An extract from an article at Envirosea.com:

Vietnam plans to almost halve its coastal fishing fleet by 2010 to protect fragile marine resources that have been badly depleted by over-fishing, local officials and foreign experts say. Many of the 8,000 fishing boats to be decommissioned per year until 2010 could be sunk in the South China Sea to create new coral reefs that serve as breeding grounds for sea life, said one government marine biologist.

The combined catch of Vietnam's fishing fleet in the country's exclusive waters has surpassed the estimated sustainable level of 1.7 million tons per year, and some species have almost disappeared, the government says.

"Our experts tell us the situation is very serious and that we need to urgently find a solution," said Le Thiet Binh, conservation division chief at the Fisheries Ministry, commenting on the new five-year plan.

Many of the sunken ships could be used to rehabilitate Vietnam's degraded coral reefs, 80 percent of which are at risk from pollution and destructive fishing practices, said marine biologist Professor Nguyen Chu Hoi.

Many reefs, considered by scientists the 'rainforests of the oceans' for their species diversity, have been destroyed by dynamite fishing and trawlers dragging nets across them.

The government could buy and sink about 1,000 of the decommissioned ships every year, Hoi, the director of the ministry's Institute for Maritime Economy and Planning, told the Vietnam News Agency.

Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines had expanded their coral reefs with similar methods, and Vietnam could follow suit, he said, stressing that "without coral reefs, the sea will be like a desert."

This is great news for the reefs, and such a radical move shows the government's realisation that they're about to lose their entire fish and reef population if they let the current over-fishing continue.

I did my Advanced course in Nha Trang, Vietnam. Nha Trang has some excellent coral reefs and has a huge density of coral species around the area - and Rainbow Divers have been opening up other divespots all along Vietnam's lengthy coast. I'd love to go back and explore some more of Vietnam's scuba diving.