Diver pieces back together smashed marine ecosystem

A coral restoration program launched on the island in 2016 has transformed Wuzhizhou, a popular diving destination, into a model of sustainable marine tourism, where ecological improvement and tourism coexist harmoniously.

In 2009, in a move to protect the marine environment around the almost 1.5-square-kilometer island, which attracts millions of tourists every year with its stunning tropical coastal scenery, the resort established an office of ocean management.

Wang, who started work at the resort as a diving instructor in 2006, joined the office in 2011, after the island launched a marine ranching project.

"The marine ranch in Wuzhizhou differs a lot from many others," Wang said, adding that while many other ranches are for fish farming, the one in Wuzhizhou aims to conserve the marine resources the island depends on to attract tourists, especially those beneath the water, such as fish and coral reefs.

"Once the local ecosystem improves, that will be of great help to the tourism industry," he noted.

At the very beginning, a focus in the construction of the fish ranch was to establish artificial fish reefs and stock hatchery-grown fish in the wild. In 2014, the idea of restoring the damaged coral reefs by planting them came to Wang when the experimental trial of a researcher from the Hainan Academy of Ocean and Fisheries Sciences on the island achieved initial success.