Service National d'Observation CORAIL

In 2004, Moorea's Maritime Space Management Plan (PGEM) was officially approved and included 8 Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). In support of this action, the CRIOBE, in collaboration with the Marine Resources Department, launched a biological monitoring program for the MPAs which were established to help regulate fisheries. The monitoring program was created to collect data from each of the MPAs and to then run analyses to determine whether the reserves are effective in protecting habitats and marine resources (fish and edible invertebrates).

Technology is helping to transform monitoring methods that are used to monitor species that live in benthic – or ‘bottom’ - habitats. In the past, monitoring was almost always carried out through visual surveys conducted by scientific divers, equipped with a slate and a pencil, who took note of all of the target categories present within a given in a ‘transect’ area.

A training session on large-scale imaging techniques for the representation of coral reefs, with a primary focus on the 3D representation of the seabed, was organized in early 2022 by the Scripps Institution of the University of California, San Diego (USA), in charge of the 100 Island Challenge program