THE Dampier Archipelago is a chain of 42 coastal islands, islets and rocks off the coast of Karratha that are a haven of coral reefs, sponge gardens and more than 650 species of fish.
However cyclones, extreme heat events, industrial activity and boating numbers are starting to put those coral reefs at risk.
Luckily two young marine scientists have taken up the cause and have created a pilot trial which would test the viability of different aquaculture methods of quickly growing corals in the ocean.
Reef Craft is the company behind the trial - a marine habitat restoration and conservation business that was co-founded by Tullem McKiever and Cambell Nalder, who together have come up with the Reef Ark Dampier project.
"Our main target is to try and help bolster the local reefs that already exist by going into an area that might have seen coral bleaching or death and bringing in corals that we have farmed," Mr McKiever said.
"The idea is that by bringing those corals into that area, it would help to increase the population of corals and subsequently increase their resilience to any future disturbance events that might occur."
While Reef Craft has worked on similar projects in enclosed aquarium systems for scientific research and private commercial ventures, the Dampier Archipelago project will be the first foray into doing it in the ocean.
They will be using traditional methods of coral aquaculture that are seen in the aquarium trade, but are also looking at doing a few other things that are a bit different.
Reef Craft recently signed a partnership deal with AdditiveNow, a company trialling innovative 3D printing for coral propagation models, and plan to test the kind of material, textures and size that provide the best outcomes for coral growth.
Mr Nalder said they saw a need for replenishing coral stocks when it came to natural events such as cyclones and heat waves, but also for the industry in the area.
"If we can successfully find an appropriate method that quickly allows us to grow corals through aquaculture, we can upscale quite quickly," Mr Nalder said.
"People are starting to realise what is happening under the water and a lot more pressure is being put on companies that are using the ocean and we want to be able to provide a really good option for those companies to ensure the health of those areas for the future."
The idea of the trial is to showcase to potential industry clients and to the regulators that this kind of coral restoration and conservation can be done cost effectively and quite quickly.
The long term of that is that Reef Craft can get in the water and start doing more productive work in helping to restore and rehabilitate the local reefs of the Archipelago.
"Our intention is for eventually the trial to expand out and allow us to do more specific industry based restoration," Mr McKiever said.
"Dampier affords us a really good opportunity to trial the methods because it's got high diversity and lots of coral, but it also has a really large industry and government input.
"We believe that by being local it helps those industry partners that operate in the marine space to be more interested in something that is there to help locally, rather than doing something like helping to repair the rainforest in Queensland which has nothing to do with what they're doing in Dampier itself."
While the corals in the Dampier Archipelago are generally really healthy, climate change is starting to take a slow and steady toll.
As the world moves forward and there are more heatwaves and activities in the area, there will be a need in the future to protect the marine habitats, especially when it is home to iconic megafauna - such as turtles, whales and dugongs.
"A lot of the reefs are pristine, but there is a lot of activity locally with both industry and boating - I think it's the highest boat ownership per capita in Australia - and we want to be able to mitigate that sort of activity in the long term," Mr Nalder said.
"Those ecosystems can generally repair themselves, however usually it's not quite to the same conditions that it was in before.
"We're creating an opportunity to speed up that replenishment, so the corals are at the pre-disturbance levels before the next event occurs, meaning that the system is at an ideal state, rather than allowing it to gradually degrade over time."
Reef Craft was given a helping hand in getting the project off the ground thanks to a $93,034 Regional Economic Development grant from the Pilbara Development Commission (PDC) and the State government.
"While the financial side of it is useful, the grant also helps us to meet industry partners that may not have been as interested in what we're doing before we got endorsed by the PDC," Mr McKiever said.
"That sort of engagement in Dampier is going to be really important to us moving forward and it's really exciting for us that we're getting interest from the industry in the area."
The approvals process for the project is currently underway and should hopefully be completed within the next three to four months.
After that, Reef Craft will wait for the season to stabilise and hopefully should have the farm in the Dampier Archipelago by no later than December.
