Tubbataha Reef
| Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park | |
|---|---|
UNESCO world heritage 
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| National territory: | Philippines |
| Type: | nature |
| Criteria : | (vii) (ix) (x) |
| Surface: | 96,828 ha |
| Reference No .: | 653 |
| UNESCO region : | Asia and Pacific |
| History of enrollment | |
| Enrollment: | 1993 (session 17) |
| Tubbataha Reef | ||
|---|---|---|
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| Waters | Sulu Lake | |
| Geographical location | 8 ° 55 ' N , 119 ° 55' E | |
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| Number of islands | 2 atolls | |
| Main island | North Islet | |
| Total land area | 0.01 km² | |
| Residents | uninhabited | |
The name Tubbataha Reef refers to an archipelago of two atolls in the central Sulu Sea . They belong to the Palawan Province of the Philippines .
geography
The two atolls, which are about six kilometers apart, together form the largest coral reef in the Philippines . They belong to the Mapun community . The name Tubbataha comes from the Samal . In its meaning it describes a large reef that only protrudes from the water at low tide . According to another interpretation it should mean "resting place of the mantas". The reef is in the middle of the Sulu Sea , about 160 km southeast of Puerto Princesa , the capital of Palawan .
In both atolls, the coral roof is between 100 and 300 m wide, is almost completely under water at high tide and only forms a closed shape over the water at high tide. In the middle are shallow, sandy lagoons , which are ideal habitat for stingrays and turtles . To the outside, coral walls drop in steps up to 1000 m, after a few kilometers to over 2200 m.
Tubbatawa North Reef is 17.4 km long and up to 5.5 km wide. It has a total area of 80 km², and the lagoon is up to 24 meters deep, according to other sources up to 33 meters. The ring reef is closed and there is no boat entry into the lagoon. The atoll has two islands (North Islet and Central Islet) , and some black boulders are constantly above water. The main island of North Islet (also known as Bird Island or Tubba Tawa Island ), which is only a few thousand square meters in size, at the northeast end of the atoll and is 1.2 meters high, is covered by grass and guano . When the water is low, some sandbanks come to light, each around 90 meters long.
Tubbataha South Reef is approximately 8.0 km long and up to 5.5 km wide. At its southern tip is the 1.6 meter high South Islet , with an old lighthouse that is still in operation and whose extremely weak light is not suitable for navigation. In addition, Black Rock and other black rocks and sand cays in the north of the atoll are constantly above water.
The Jessie Beazley Reef is 15 miles northwest of North Islet .
geology
The 500 km long and 30 km wide Cagayan-de-Sulu ridge divides the Sulu Sea into the north-west and south-east basin and connects the reef islands of Cagayan , with the neighboring islands of Arena and Cawili, as well as Tubbataha and Cagayan de Sulu northeast of Borneo .
The atolls of Tubbataha were probably formed by a collapsed caldera (underground magma chamber), on the edges of which a limestone roof, now almost 100 m high, was formed by the tiny coral polyps over the course of thousands and thousands of generations, creating the first steep step. This hypothesis is supported by the just south of the archipelago extending Sulugraben , the east to the Negro ditch encounters - in the north leads Manila Trench on. At these faults in particular, volcanic activities could have occurred due to plate tectonics and subduction .
Marine National Park
The Philippine President Corazon Aquino declared the reef and the surrounding area to be Tubbataha Reef National Marine Park on August 11, 1988 . Commercial fishing and the gathering of corals were thus banned, which was, however, only hesitantly implemented in February 2000 through the establishment of a permanent ranger station on a southern sandbank in the northern atoll almost completely and nationwide. In 1993 the national park was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO . The so far protected area extends from 8 ° 44 '- 8 ° 57' North and 119 ° 48 '- 120 ° 03'. At the beginning of 2005, the northwest lying Jessie Beazley Reef with a diameter of 500 m and a sandbar 10 m long and 1 m high at high tide was incorporated. After fishing and anchoring were still allowed, the protected area was reclassified on August 23, 2010 in accordance with the guidelines of Republic Law 7586 , in coordination with UNESCO, and has since been designated as a Tubbataha Reef Natural Park and declared a no-take zone . The Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park is one of the six conservation areas in the Philippines that have been designated as Ramsar areas .
7% of the entrance fees go directly to the budget of the greater Cagayancillo community in the Cagayan Islands , as the Tubbataha Atoll is administered by it. The Cagayan Archipelago also has excellent diving areas.
Flora and fauna
In the 970.30 km² large marine nature park there are coral banks on an area of around 100 km². This makes it the third largest contiguous reef system in the Philippines, which is largely intact due to its remote location and is ranked among the 10 most beautiful worldwide in the hit list of diving magazines. The French diving pioneer Jacques-Yves Cousteau was the only one to visit this reef twice.
It's not a pristine, intact reef, however. Especially in the mid to late 1980s, cyanide and dynamite and all other illegal and legal fishing methods were used on a large scale ; not only, but also from foreign cutters, most of which came from the People's Republic of China , Vietnam and Korea . In addition, there is damage from trawls, trawls and anchors. The consequences are still obvious today, even though large areas of coral debris are well overgrown. The walls, especially in the lower regions, have hardly suffered. Around 500 different species of fish can be observed in the waters of the reef, such as the whitetip reef shark , rare blacktip reef sharks , gray reef sharks , eight species of marine mammals (including dolphins ), large tuna and mackerel , grouper , Napoleon wrasse , ornamental fish . Lobsters and large stingrays are rarer but not uncommon. Nesting nests of the sea turtle and hawksbill turtle can be found on the islands of the reef . Rare guests, but the chance is there, are manta rays and whale sharks . In addition, there are about 374 species of soft and hard corals , seagrass meadows and an unmanageable number of microorganisms. The huge fans of countless gorgonians attract attention in places , and many soft corals indicate the good water quality.
Scientifically, 20 to 30 metric tons per square nautical mile of biomass is accepted as a general indicator of good condition of a reef. According to a survey, Tubbataha has 87.2 to offer, while Puerto Galera / northeastern Mindoro is in second place in the Philippines with 26.24 t.
The inventory list is completed by 44 bird species, many of them nest on the only 300–500 m wide island in the northern atoll with sparse vegetation; here is absolute no entry. The area is mainly inhabited by terns ( Weißkappennoddi , Anous minutus; Noddi , Anous stolidus; Black tern , Onychoprion fuscatus ; Common tern , Thalasseus bergii ) and brown boobies ( Sula leucogaster ). Occasional visitors are albatrosses and ariel frigate birds ( Fregatta ariel ).
Diving
The underwater landscape with its biodiversity attracts many scuba divers due to its excellent condition due to the great distance to fishing areas . Although the reef can only be visited from mid-March to mid-June and the journey by ship from Cebu City , Manila or Puerto Princesa takes many hours, it is becoming more and more attractive for divers. Even so, the atolls only reach fewer than a thousand people a year. The visibility under water is 15 to 40 m depending on the conditions and on some days - especially in May - up to 45 m. Both atolls (the larger North Atoll and the South Atoll) as well as the Jessie Beazley Reef located about 22 km northeast of the archipelago can be dived.
In the Tubbataha Atolls, extreme vertical and horizontal currents that are life-threatening for inexperienced divers can suddenly occur (“washing machine”).
Incidents
On January 17, 2013, the USS Guardian ( Avenger class ), a mine clearer of the US Navy , ran aground in the naval protection park and destroyed around 1000 m² of the coral reef.
literature
Summaries of a scientific study on the reefs. Mainly in English with Tagalog interspersions (created in the Philippines).
- Yasmin D. Arquiza / Alan T. White: Tales from Tubbataha. Natural history, resource use and conservation. 2nd edition, 1999, ISBN 971-569-337-7 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Atoll Area, Depth and Rainfall ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF), page 4.
- ↑ National Geospatioal-Intelligence Agency : Pub ( Memento of the original from August 12, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 5.4 MB). 162, Sailing Directions (Enroute), Tenth Edition, Springfield, Virginia 2012, 398.
- ↑ UNESCO World Heritage Center: Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park. Retrieved on August 24, 2017 .
- ↑ Protected Areas in Region 4B - MIMAROPA ( Memento of the original from October 29, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English) on the website of the Protected Areas and Wildlife Bureau (PAWB).
- ↑ Unesco: Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park. Retrieved October 27, 2015.
- ↑ Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park on Ramsar.Org ( Memento from August 13, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ The Republicact 10067 in Philippinelaw (English).
- ↑ Entry in the UNESCO World Heritage List (English)
- ↑ Monty Halls : Diving Worldwide. Ultimate Sports Verlag, Cologne 2004, ISBN 3-9809607-0-6 , pp. 254-257.
- ↑ Tiroler Tageszeitung: US warship destroys huge part of a protected coral reef, January 23, 2013.
Web links
- Klaus Polak: Tubbataha Atolls - arrival, diving report, biodiversity
- Landsat Image hosted by ESRI
- Landsat image of the Tubbataha South Reef on Oceancolor
- map
Heritage: Baroque Churches of the Philippines (1993) | Rice Terraces in the Filipino Cordillera (1995) | Historical city of Vigan (1999)
Natural Heritage: Tubbataha Reef Natural Park (1993) | Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park (1999) | Hamiguitan Mountain Wildlife Sanctuary (2014)