Objective: The primary objective of the project is to locally enhance communities capacity to contribute to the management, the conservation and the rehabilitation of coral reefs ecosystems in order to improve their resilience for sustainable livelihoods and development. The implementation of in-situ coral nurseries will nurture coral fragments to facilitate the growth and expansion of coral cover in at-risk areas within the lagoon.

Implementation: A preliminary survey will be carried out to determine the biophysical and socio-economic characteristics of the targeted area in order to obtain all the baseline parameters required.Several species of coral will be reared in the nursery after consultation with the local community and the farm will be maintained with the help of all the stakeholders in the region. For the transplantation phase, all nursery-grown corals will be transplanted to both natural and artificial substrates at selected reef sites. The site of transplantation should not be too far from the nurseries in order to reduce stress on the reared corals during the transplantation process. Natural substrates will include dead tabular coral skeleton whereas artificial substrates will include locally adapted ARRMs (Artificial Reef Rehabilitation Modules).

Monitoring: The nurseries and rehabilitated reef will be monitored for 1 month after transplantation as will inspections that the coral are not detaching, being overrun by invasive species, being damaged due to predators such as parrot and wrasse species. A report will be produced from the data obtained through these activities.