the protection of the coral and coastal vegetation benefits both the local communities and the environment in general. another local conservation program involves preserving mangrove trees mangroves help to protect coastlines they sustain sea life and their growth can help to counteract the effects of rising sea levels by actually elevating the coastline but like corals coastal mangroves are among the most endangered ecosystems on earth that s according to the united nations where the last hundred years we ve lost at least one third of the world s mangrove forests they re actually being lost at a rate of three to five times higher than average deforestation rates of other forests so these are very vulnerable ecosystems coastal communities in the area have committed to restoring mangroves the project is based in galaxy bay and
reefs in kenya pollution has caused a large scale collapse of this human habitat that in time has increased. storing my real life off the coast has been a primary goal for conservationists for almost four years now let s see how far they have come. gardening under water has become routine for the fisherman of what seen the island for the past four years they have regularly planted corals in soft concrete on the seabed there reef was disintegrating like many of the coal reefs along the kenyan coast and as a result their fishing grounds were shrinking. before we started planting corals we used to get about two thousand three hundred kilos of
rabbit fish in a month and about eight hundred kilos of snapper but since we started cultivating corals from around twenty fourteen or fifteen our catch has increased by between three and four thousand so we re now getting about four thousand six hundred kilos of fish here look. the area is certainly now teeming with life fishing or dropping directly in the area of the reef is banned in order to protect the corals only snorkeling is allowed the project is supported by the kenyan government and the european commission local boat operators are also involved. is a fisherman who volunteers for the project. the project has made our island famous it s become a real tourist attraction and it s developed our community because we now have many visitors who want to come and see where transplanting corals that was seanie as they come in large numbers of the island. he says.