In late March 2007 an extensive survey was undertaken by scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Society - Indonesia Program (WCS-IP) and the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (ARCCoERS) to assess the status of coral reefs in Pulau Simeulue and Pulau Banyak. These islands were severely affected by the tsunami in December 2004 and the earthquake in March 2005.

The surveys which covered 35 sites from approximately 600km of coastline, have documented, for the first time, the effects of earthquake uplift on coral reefs; possibly one of the single largest mass coral mortality events ever recorded. The entire island of Simeulue, with a perimeter of approximately 300 km, was raised up to 1.2 m following the 26 March 2005 earthquake, exposing much of the coral reefs which ringed the island.

During the survey the team witnessed a mass mortality on a scale rarely observed. In contrast to other threats like coral bleaching, none of the corals uplifted by the earthquake survived but remained largely intact. Amazingly, the uplifted corals are so well preserved we could still identify each species, despite these colonies having been exposed for 2 years. Some species suffered up to 100% loss at some sites, and different species now dominate the shallow reef.

However, the news from Simeulue is not all bad. At many sites, the worst affected species are beginning to re-colonize the shallow reef areas where they belong. The reefs appear to be returning to what they looked like before the earthquake, although the process may take many years. This is a unique opportunity to document a process that occurs maybe once a century and promises to provide novel insights in to recovery processes that have until now only been explored on fossil reefs. The challenge of WCS and its partners now is to work with local communities and government agencies to protect these reefs to ensure the recovery process continues.

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