The corals in the park suffered heavy damage from bleaching in 2010, and suffered another spate of bleaching in May this year, Prarop Plang Ngan, Chief Phuket Marine National Park Operation Center 2, told The Phuket News.
“In 2010, El Nino saw sea temperatures in the Gulf of Thailand and the Andaman Sea rise by 2-3ºC, which resulted in coal bleaching across about 80 square kilometres,” Mr Prarop said.
“Plus our staff went out to to inspect the damage done after more coral bleaching conditions in the park in May 2019,” he said.
However, a recent assessment of coral restoration efforts by park officers from the Phuket Marine National Park Operation Center 2 along with Phuket Rajabhat University Faculty of Science and Technology lecturer Dr Thanongsak Chanmethakul had confirmed that an estimated 90% of the damaged corals have recovered, Mr Prarop told The Phuket News.
“We went to inspect the areas around Stork Island, Ao Jak, Ao Mae Yai, Ao Chong Khad, Hin Pae, Ao Tao, Ao Pak Kad, Torinla Island on July 26-27,” he said.
“We were following up on the recovery of the corals in the park and found that more than 90% of the corals had improved,” he added.
Mr Prarop explained that in the officers had established three “experimental” recovery areas, at Stork Island, Hin Pae and Tarinla Island, where officers are monitoring the coral regrowth.
The officers noticed that where corallimorph were growing, other corals where not thriving.
“We removed the Corallimorph from the experimental plots and found that where the Corallimorph was removed, branch corals had grown five to 10 centimeters in only eight months,” Mr Prarop said.
“In the future, corallimorph may take a year to dominate an area naturally, so we will pay more attention to this and remove it where necessary to help other forms of corals to grow,” he said.