Environment: The Nature Reserve installs artificial underwater habitats

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In order to offer a substitute refuge for marine animals while acting in parallel on the rehabilitation of natural habitats, the Saint-Martin Nature Reserve launched in 2014 its BioHab 1 project, which consists of the creation of artificial habitats in the waters under its management.

They also aim to promote the survival of the early stages (post-larvae) by providing additional refuge for fish, molluscs, echinoderms and crustaceans associated with coral reefs. The idea is also to propose new diving sites in order to reduce the number of visitors to natural sites and thus allow better recovery of their populations.

Nine modules, made of concrete blocks assembled in different forms, were thus immersed. Destroyed by Gonzalo, then reinstalled, these artificial habitats were completely silted up by Irma. So, for six months, the Nature Reserve has been working on BioHab 2 which is more ambitious than its predecessor in terms of volumes but also of diversity of materials used. The Reserve immersed two new underwater artificial habitats in June 2018, and has just installed two more this week. Each site houses around forty modules of various shapes, offering complex structures, caches of different sizes and rough surfaces that can be colonized.

The big news is that these new artificial habitats are made from recycled materials, and if possible, from Irma waste.

"BioHab2 therefore aims to select compatible materials during cleaning operations and, in collaboration with various contributors (VerdeSXM, Tout à Louer ....), to develop architectural proposals for modules to be immersed" explains Julien Chalifour, head of scientific center at the Reserve.

These artificial habitats are also destined to receive the coral cuttings put in the nursery three years ago. Thus, according to Julien Chalifour, “the surfaces of the modules should gradually be colonized by the living and ultimately become real living reefs. Artificial habitats are destined to favor the survival of a larger number of young fish, to allow an increase in populations and therefore an export of individuals from the Reserve to adjacent areas. But in the long term, they cannot replace natural reefs. "

(More details on www.soualigapost.com)

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