Be sure to read our monthly updates from Marine Savers – direct from our resident teams at
the Marine Discovery Centres at Landaa & Kuda Huraa – our long-term partnership with Four Seasons Resorts Maldives.
Landaa Giraavaru
At Landaa this month, we transplanted 23 new coral frames, kindly sponsored by guests (7), the Resort (16), and online (0), adding ~880 new coral fragments to the reef. Frames were planted at “Plankton”, a site located near Charlie’s Head, where they will be frequently seen by divers. We also monitored (cleaned, repaired, photographed) ~230 sponsored frames, mainly at our Dive Site and Whale Tail. A new project was also launched to place Four Seasons frames around the water villas, where they can be viewed directly from the villas.
To see the progress of your own frame, please visit our dedicated Four Seasons monitoring page where we upload new photos every 6 months or so.
Recycling & Retransplanting
Throughout August, we focused on recycling frames impacted by last year’s global mass bleaching event, removing frames with no live coral. This recovery effort maximizes coral survival by transplanting healthy fragments onto structurally sound frames. With support from our interns, apprentices, and Kuda Huraa colleagues, we made significant progress across several sites. By the end of August, 75 frames had been successfully recycled and restored, with more than 90% live coral cover. Additional small and medium frames within the Jetty area were also recycled.
Not all frames were equally affected by bleaching; we have observed that our deeper frames (10m+) retained many healthy corals. Of these, ~50% of the fragments were recycled, averaging 1,850 fragments retransplanted across the 75 frames. Fragments were sourced from opportunistic rescue corals (at risk of burial by seasonally shifting sands), and from sustainable coral gardening at The Manta, carefully trimming larger healthy colonies for low-impact.
Having finished three important patches, we will continue working on other sections of the house reef, with special attention to the Jetty area due to its visibility to guests. This focused strategy has allowed us to restore entire patches, so we plan to extend into other high-priority areas while monitoring survival and recovery of the transplanted fragments.
Water Villas – Stacking, Repopulation, Challenges
Our Reefscapers intern Libbie has been leading the Wave Villas Project to renew coral frames and relocate them to guest villas. She has trained a dedicated team of apprentices in the art of coral identification, fragmentation and retransplantation. The first task was to remove and stack any dead coral frames for collection. To transport frames to the Wave Villas, we dropped them from the main jetty, hauled in groups of six, transported by buggy, and re-deployed them into the lagoon close to individual villas. This unusual handling makes secure attachment essential, so we used pliers to tighten the ties to prevent the coral fragments from falling off during transit.
We prioritised resilient coral species that were seen to be thriving under similar conditions. This included opportunistically harvesting healthy fragments in the area, and collecting from The Elephant site (with similar environmental conditions). Special focus was given to the placement of species on the frames, to maximise survival based specific local conditions.
Kuda Huraa
At Kuda Huraa this month, our coral experts transplanted 8 new frames, kindly sponsored by guests (6), the Resort (2), and online (0). In addition, we monitored and repopulated 41 growing coral frames.
To see the progress of your frame, please visit our dedicated Four Seasons monitoring page where we upload new photos every 6 months or so.
Reef Maintenance
This month, we conducted maintenance at three restoration sites around Kuda Huraa: the blue hole, the water villas, and house reef. Many thanks to our interns and apprentices for all their hard work, maintaining and monitoring the coral frames. Most efforts focused on accessible beach sites to ensure accurate mapping, maintenance, and monitoring. A total of four frames were recycled from two Junior Marine Saver activities and two school visits.
Since their relocation last month, and subsequent remapping, the water villa frames have shown significant improvement. Moving them to deeper water and away from the wild Montipora digitata patch has notably enhanced their health, particularly the paled/bleached fragments of Acropora muricata that have now regained their colour.
All eight new frames this month were outplanted at the blue hole site, where we also rearranged and remapped existing frames. The site is thriving, attracting diverse marine life including megafauna. Outplanting will continue to enhance this growing ecosystem.
Coral Predators
This month saw an increase in corallivorous gastropods, mainly concentrated in the Montipora digitata patch near the water villas. Higher numbers reflect increased monitoring efforts, with multiple focused removal dives. One crown-of-thorns starfish (pictured) was collected near the blue hole; none were found at water villas, blue hole or house reef.
