BIOROCK 2008

This last year, the local community of Koh Tao took the first, but very large, steps towards making marine conservation a priority for our island. Along with the Save Koh Tao Group, seventeen local dive schools and a number of local businesses donated and raised almost 1 million Baht to build a Biorock™ alternative dive site on the island. Becoming the largest Biorock in the Gulf of Thailand, and the world’s first Biorock SCUBA diver training area. This new site utilizes low voltage electrical energy to stimulate coral growth and will provide an interesting and attractive training area for new SCUBA divers before they go out to the natural reefs.

In late September of 2008, about 100 volunteers from the local dive shops and community came down every day to construct the large Biorock structure, which consists of four massive steel domes connected together to form a site that covers almost 1,000 square meters of sandy bottom. In only a short time, fish and corals will settle here and create a thriving new ecosystem, and because it is a Biorock site, the area will be better prepared to survive changing environmental conditions caused by rising sea temperatures.

The project was a great success, and had the added benefit of pulling together and educating the local community. This project is only the beginning of the new ideological state on Koh Tao where business goals and environmental stewardship go hand in hand, protecting our resources and livelihoods well into the future.

Each week there is a lecture and dive at the biorock site. Participants get to learn about the technology and how it works before practicing research and maintenance on the project. If you would like to attend contact MarineConservationKT@gmail.com

Free for Professional divers from schools that helped to fund the biorock or involved in the EMP.

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