The Department of Marine and Coastal Resources has found a yellow-band disease outbreak at a coral reef in Sattahip in Chon Buri province.
The department immediately took action by destroying the infected reef to prevent further outbreaks, said Athapol Charoenchansa, chief of the Department of Marine and Coastal Resources.
He said he obtained a report from the Eastern Marine and Coastal Resources Research and Development Institute that surveyed the reef in the area of Sattahip-Samae San Island in the middle of this month and found the outbreak of yellow-band disease in some staghorn and boulder coral.
Mr Athapol said the disease was dangerous to reef populations and those infected would not be able to recover, which is different from the phenomenon of coral bleaching when the coral has a chance of survival and becoming healthy again.
He has asked for cooperation from the department's partners, including the Royal Thai Navy, Raks Thai Foundation, the Faculty of Marine Technology at Burapha University's Chanthaburi Campus, and diving volunteer groups to take on an operation segregating infectious coral reef from uninfected.
The effort seeks to prevent the disease from spreading further, Mr Athapol said.
"We must limit the scale of the outbreak as fast as possible otherwise it can expand quickly to a larger area. One cause of the disease relates to the coral reef's biological stress that occurs following human activities, such as overfishing and pollution, that disturb its living environment," he said.
Climate change is another possible factor leading to the disease, he added.
According to the survey's results, it found that the outbreak was found at a large scale on Kham Island and Sattahip-Samae San Island.
The speed of the outbreak is measured at 1-6 centimetres per week for staghorn coral and 1cm per month for boulder coral.
Mr Athapol further added that the department is going to work closely with all stakeholders, including local communities, to put more measures in place to prevent outbreaks.
A source from the department said the yellow-band disease was also found in some areas in Trat, Chanthaburi, Rayong, Chon Buri, and Prachuap Khiri Khan. There have been no reports of coral bleaching this year.
