Fujairah's divers build artificial 'mega reef' in a good bid to safeguard UAE sea life

"[UAE’s Ministry of Climate Switch and Environment] MOCCAE supplied us with the mother corals, therefore we planted them here in the port. Then we started taking parts of the mom corals, and replanted them in phases elsewhere," Saeed Al-Maamari, diver and director of Fujairah Experience Centre, told Reuters.

"This job came as an initial line of defence to stability the ocean environment."

The production aims to be the world’s largest coral garden. It had been declared by the MOCCAE in June 2018.

"We are recreating the coral reef environment and system, which turns into colonised with seafood and increases biodiversity and becomes a habitat for seafood species that are threatened and it turns into a nice environment for diving tourism," said Ahmed Al-Zaabi, director of marine environment exploration at MOCCAE.

"All these things result from planting corals or perhaps the coral colonies that exist everywhere, so, when these colonies grow, everything changes found in this habitat."

Reefs develop and grow over thousands of years, and so are home to many marine species. In Fujairah's waters, divers can area reef sharks, including black suggestion and guitar sharks, stingrays, manta rays, eagle rays, turtles, tropical fish, eels and colourful nudibranch around reefs. Specifically lucky divers have possibly spotted whale sharks in the UAE's waters.

In May, dive instructor Zeek Zorkany returned to the sea after a two-month hiatus because of restrictions encircling the coronavirus.

“The fish were coming right up to us, and at one point, there were even sharks approaching us. Normally, they might come to be freaked out and vanish immediately,” he told The National.

“The important thing was the amount of schools of fish that people saw. The amount of fish has most likely quadrupled since I previous went diving two months ago, in early on March.

"It was like being in a good forest of seafood. The visibility has also genuinely improved, and there is no rubbish and no plastic to be observed. We did visit a handful of gloves and face masks, though.”