As planed, i presented the project Center Island - A Plastic Bottle Biorock Island on the 5th of February in Chalok baan Kao. The presentation at the Save Koh Tao Meeting went well so far and i was very happy to get provided with a projector to show my presentation. I was busy planing and designing the idea during the past month, as well as busy creating the presentation itself. Now that the presentation is over and all depends on how much support the idea of building Center Island (or Koh Sun - in Thai) can get during the month to come, i have decided to publish the PowerPoint Slide show on how Center Island could be built, on the Internet. I have already uploaded the Slide show on the German language Koh Tao Magazine and now it is also available here at the Koh Tao Community Website.[...]

The Video about how to build a plastic bottle island on a floating Biorock[TM] will hopefully show well enough what the whole idea is about. Basically I want to combine the idea of Richi Sowa who has built his home on a plastic bottle island in Mexico, and Thomas Goreau who showed us how we can naturally grow solid hard material that perfectly integrates in the natural environment and even enhances growth and healing of corals, thus how to artificially build strong, solid, new and healthy coral reefs.

Unfortunately i just found out, that this website doesn't allow me to show the video directly, so here is the link to the video on the Koh Tao CH site, sorry for the inconvenience.

Since a Biorock structure not only works it's biological wonders on the structure itself, but also in a distance of several meters away from a structure, I feel that with a "Floating Biorock" of this kind we could achieve many goals of the save Koh Tao and of the worlds needs at once.

It could in fact act as a Mama Biorock! Once the Island gets heavily overgrown, a shallow spot around Koh Tao with little natural coral growth itself could be selected for a stationary point to 'park' Center Island for several month. Big Corals could then be manually removed from the Plastic Bottle Island by scuba divers, and carefully placed below the swimming reef. Under the influence of the Biorock above, a new reef would start growing almost immediately and develop within month only. The proceeder could be repeated endlessly around Koh Tao!

Center Island can also act as a Data collection center. A small marine research center, right at the front line! A Bar-like built class room proofed very helpful at the Secret Garden Summer Camp for the Koh Tao Kids. A similar building could be used for classes in marine biology and understanding the marine environment. A hands-on classroom not only for the school children of Koh Tao, but also for Dive Centers who all conduct Underwater Naturalist courses from PADI and SSI. What better place one could think of than right in the middle of it?

The committee of Save Koh Tao will decide whether or not to build Center Island in one month, on March 5th, the next SKT meeting. Anybody who wants to support the project, please leave a comment on this article and let us know about your opinion. I will keep you posted here during the coming 30 days about any new development regarding Center Island. Thank you all for your time.