Special care was taken to make the garden as aesthetically pleasing as possible, since one of the aims of the reef restoration operation was to ensure that tourists and snorkellers would find coral beds of high quality, with artificial blocks blending harmoniously into the underwater landscape. Information panels have been installed on the beach and brochures produced to increase public awareness of coral reef problems and to explain the reasons for this operation in particular. Results and lessons learned Restoration work was completed just one year ago. Transplanting the corals onto the concrete blocks and sandy bottoms in the coral garden area did not raise any major difficulties. The techniques used to move the corals and establish the transplants proved to be both efficient and appropriate.
Results show that the shoreline seems to have stabilised along part of the beach.
However, it appears that many sectors of the platform around the southern end of the point were not properly filled in. Water depth varies in many places from 1.20 to 1.80 m., so that sediment flows have not been adequately restored and still do not nourish beaches naturally. Overall health is good amongst the colonies transplanted onto and around the artificial blocks, except for transplanted specimens of Porites synaraea , which have either died or are in poor health. Corals have rapidly recolonised the artificial substrate. The number of young corals counted varies from 10 to over 100 individuals depending on the size of each artificial block.