Establishing a Protocol for Coral Reef Damage Assessment for the Turks and Caicos Islands

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Establishing a Protocol for Coral Reef Damage
Assessment for the Turks and Caicos Islands
By Judith Campbell Tatum Fisher
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Objective

• To develop a standardized protocol for assessing
  coral reefs damaged by vessel grounding and/or
  anchoring.

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Recorded Incidents of Grounding in TCI
Sea Eagle (2003) Exodus (2000)
Trouvadore (1841)
P
Mary of the Star (1998)
Caravel/Molasses Reef Wreck (1513)
Solo (1993)
Benfield (1998) Opi (2001) Champlain (2003)
Jasper Orange(1980s)
HMS Endymion (1790)
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Recorded Incidents of Grounding in TCI

• 1513 Caravel West Caicos
• 1790 H.M.S Endymion Great Sand Cay
• 1841 Trouvadore East Caicos
• 1980s Jaspeur Orange Salt Cay
• 1993 Solo Grand Turk
• 1998 Mary Star of the Sea West Caicos
• 1998 Benfield Grand Turk
• 2000 Exodus Providenciales
• 2001 Ninkulhe 5 Providenciales
• 2001 Opi Grand Turk
• 2003 Champlain Grand Turk
• 2003 Sea Eagle Providenciales

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Impact on grounding incidents on the reefs

• Scarifications
• Breakage of a few coral heads

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Impact on grounding incidents on the reefs

• Toppling of several coral heads
• Crushing of reef crest

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Main Issues

• Previously reef assessment has been sporadic.
• Wide rage of assessments methods have been used
  and have resulted in varied valuations
• Legal personnel do not understand how we arrive
  at the figure for compensation, and are reluctant
  to prosecute.
• Boaters and visiting yacht men are negligent due
  to the absence of precedence.

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Legal Basis for Damage Assessment and Restoration

• Fisheries Ordinance Part III, Section 10 (1 2)
• (1) No person shall, . use any explosive,
  noxious or other substance or any device or thing
  potentially harmful to marine life to remove,
  dissolve, shift or in any way disturb any coral,
  sea oats, sand, rock or other substance forming
  part of the sea bed or any wreck within the
  fishery limits.
• (2) Any person who contravenes any provision of
  this regulation shall be guilty of an offence.

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Legal Basis for Damage Assessment and Restoration

• National Park Regulations Section 8, 3 (1c)
• (1) The following are prohibited within all
  national parks
• (c) the destruction of, or damage or
  injury to, any animal or plant
• National Park Regulations Section 8, 13
• (4) The court before which any person is
  convicted of an offence under this regulation may
  order-
• (b) that the person so convicted pay the cost of
  repairing any damage to a national park, nature
  reserve, sanctuary or area of historical
  interest caused by the commission of such
  offence.

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Results of Previous Assessments
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Damage Assessment Protocol

• Should provide the framework for determining
• What resources have been injured,
• What is the loss to the public,
• How can the resources be restored,
• What type and amount of restoration is
  appropriate.

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The Protocol

• Pre-assessment
• Restoration Planning
• Economic Assessment of Damages

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1. Pre-assessment

• Gather facts of the incident
• Name of Vessel
• Description of the vessel
• Vessel registration information
• Captain/ Owners name and contact info
• Point of departure and intended destination
• Time of grounding and events surrounding
  grounding
• Mark the beginning and end of grounding site with
  surface buoy
• Gather physical evidence
• GPS coordinates of grounding site
• Water depth at grounding site

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Pre-assessment contd

• Determine the natural resources and services that
  are, or likely to have been, injured as a result
  of the incident
• Identify potential restoration actions relevant
  to the expected injuries
• Determine potential assessment procedures to
  evaluate the injuries and define the appropriate
  type and scale of restoration for injured natural
  resources and services.

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2. Restoration Planning

• Injury Assessment
• To quantify the degree of injury expressed in
  terms of percent mortality proportion of a
  species, community, or habitat affected.
• To quantify the spatial extent of injury the
  total area injured.
• To determine temporal extent of injury
  expressed as the total length of time that the
  natural resource and/or service is adversely
  affected.
• Restoration Selection Implementation
• Selecting appropriate restorative action
• Emergency restoration
• Restoration implementation
• Monitoring programme

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3. Economic Assessment of Damages

• To estimate the amount of money to be sought
• as compensation from the responsible party,
• for the injury resulting in the damage to the
• reefs.
• Restoration cost (Implementation and completion
  of restoration project)
• Compensatory restoration for interim loss of
  services.
• All emergency responses
• Injury assessment
• Preparation of the damage assessment report
• Long-term scientific monitoring studies