Cu Lao Cham Marine Reserve

In October 2003, people began to draw a boundary on the sea. It was not a wall, and it was not a fence. It was a line of small floating buoys, each tied fast to the seabed by an anchor rope. The line divided the protected waters from the waters still open to fishing.

From then on, life on the seabed around Cù Lao Chàm began to change.

The waters inside that line of buoys are the Cù Lao Chàm Marine Protected Area. It surrounds eight islands offshore, about 15 kilometers from the Cửa Đại coast of Hoi An.

The reserve grew out of a large project in the early 2000s. Denmark funded it to help Vietnam build a network of marine protected areas across the country. On the Danish side, the agency in charge was DANIDA, the Danish International Development Agency. Work at Cù Lao Chàm began in October 2003, and it became one of the first marine protected areas in Vietnam.

Then came more good news. On May 29, 2009, the International Coordinating Council of UNESCO's Man and the Biosphere Programme held its 21st session in Jeju, South Korea. At that session, Cù Lao Chàm and Hoi An were officially recognized as a World Biosphere Reserve. The whole biosphere reserve covers more than 33,000 hectares. Of that, the strictly protected core zone covers 11,560 hectares.

Under the water, behind that line of buoys, the coral began to tell its own story.

Before the reserve was founded, the coral reefs at Cù Lao Chàm covered about 300 hectares. At that time the coral was being destroyed by overfishing. It was also taken away for decoration and for building material. After 20 years of conservation, the reef area grew to 356.4 hectares, with nearly 300 species of coral.

Bringing the coral back begins with dives. The divers come from the reserve's management board. They use methods transferred from the Nha Trang Institute of Oceanography. The divers break small fragments from healthy coral colonies. They set them in 40 nurseries on the seabed, with a total area of about 4,000 square meters. Then they check the growth rate and survival rate at regular intervals. Once the fragments are big enough, they are moved out to the areas being restored.

Beyond the coral, the waters of Cù Lao Chàm hold 178 species of reef fish and 122 species of seaweed. There are also 144 species of mollusks and 25 species of crustaceans. Seagrass covers about 500 hectares and works like a forest under the water.

The creature most closely tied to Cù Lao Chàm is the stone crab. From 2011 to 2013, with support from the Global Environment Facility, the reserve ran an eco-label program for Cù Lao Chàm stone crab. The label guarantees that the crab comes from fishermen who catch it sustainably, without methods that destroy the environment. So a plate of stone crab here carries a promise between the crab catchers and the island where the crab grew up.

Another story dates from 2009. In the same year as the UNESCO recognition, Cù Lao Chàm launched its no plastic bags program. From then on, no one was allowed to bring plastic bags onto the islands. Visitors were checked at the pier, kindly but firmly. In place of plastic came newspaper bags and mesh bags that could be used again and again. After more than 15 years, plastic waste on the islands has fallen by about 90 percent.

Hòn Lao island has beaches for snorkeling. At Bãi Chồng or Bãi Ông, there are moments when a swimmer looks through the glass of the mask and cannot say a word. Below lies a living city, thick with color. Branching corals reach out like wide open hands. Fish of every kind glide past without fear of people. And deeper down, sunlight cuts through the water and lays shimmering gold streaks on the white sand.

Twenty years ago, that moment was slipping away. People were overfishing and taking the coral, and the reefs were being destroyed day by day. Then a small decision was made, the buoys were dropped into the sea, and nature began to heal itself in a way no one could do on its behalf.

The small buoys of that year built no wall. They only drew a line on the water, and below that line, the coral has grown back.