DAYMANIYAT ISLANDS: On a sailing boat anchored off Oman’s pristine Daymaniyat Islands, volunteer divers pull on wetsuits, check their scuba tanks and then take turns plunging into the clear turquoise water.

They are diving for a reason: to remove the massive fishing nets damaging an unusually resilient coral reef system that is seen as more likely than most to survive rising sea temperatures.

The clean-up is one example of how divers and Omani authorities are joining forces to protect the reefs — which are critical for marine wildlife — from man-made damage.

“Coral reefs are a refuge for marine habitat and wildlife,” said Hammoud al-Nayri of Oman’s environmental authority, as he watched the divers.

“To protect marine ecosystems, we must first preserve coral reefs,” said the 45-year-old who oversees the Daymaniyat Islands, Oman’s only marine reserve. Most shallow-water corals, battered and bleached white by repeated marine heatwaves, are “unlikely to last the century”, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said last year.

Global warming, as well as dynamite fishing and pollution, wiped out a startling 14 percent of the world’s reefs between 2009 and 2018, according to the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network. But Oman’s relatively cooler waters provide a rare refuge for its reefs, which are among the least studied in the world.

“Oman’s reefs are actually considered to be relatively less vulnerable than some regions,” said John Burt, associate professor of biology at New York University Abu Dhabi.

Published in Dawn, December 5th, 2023