Coral Protection – Reduction of Anchor Damage

Carelessly ejected boat anchors repeatedly cause major damage to corals, especially at heavily frequented diving and snorkeling sites. As tourism is growing, the coral reefs of Zanzibar and the surrounding islands come under additional pressure. One should assume that diving organizations and the responsible government agencies have an interest in adequately protecting the coral reefs that are important for them and for tourism. However, many dive organizations say anchor buoys and their maintenance are too expensive for them. Not even the already established Marine Protected Aeras (MPA's) are marked with buoys to make them recognizable for the fishermen.

If we only criticize the inactivity of the stakeholders, the coral reefs won't benefit. We have to do something ourselves.

Our concept is simple: fixed anchor buoys are installed at the most popular dive and snorkel sites. Instead of throwing out the anchor, the skippers can attach their boats to the buoys and thus prevent damage to corals. The fixation on the seabed is done with the so-called Hallas anchoring system. A 60 cm deep hole is drilled under water with a hydraulic drill into the rocky subsoil and a stainless steel rod is concreted in.

Scaling Up

Based on the positive experiences from a pilot phase, we anchored a total of 40 anchor buoys on behalf of coralreefcare.com at various neuralgic diving and snorkeling sites on the islands of Zanzibar, Unguja, Pemba, Mnemba, Kwale and Mafia. Included are also marker buoys for the Mnemba Island Marine Protected Areas as well as Chole Bay and Tutia Reef on Mafia Island. Together with our partner and the NGO Friends of Maziwe we helped 2019 to demarcate the MPA of Maziwe Island in Tanzania mainland.