Marine Life at Raffles Maldives

Led by Italian marine biologist Guilia Pellizato, whose
main goals are to reduce the impact of the resort on the surrounding environment and to educate guests and staff. She conducts weekly surveys of the coral reef at the resort with a special focus on fish diversity, coral health, and Crown-of-Thorns starfish abundance. Giulia actively involves guests in this surveying; she explains the importance of healthy coral reefs and lets them help her with data collection. When not monitoring the reef, Giulia also tracks the movements of the resort’s 22 resident sea turtles. This reef is still recovering from a 2016 bleaching event when many corals expelled the symbiotic algae that live inside their tissues and died. Giulia transplants small corals of opportunity from the sea bottom onto the reef to assist in the reef’s recovery.⠀