Fisherman resorting to cyanide poison and dynamite blast fishing pose a huge threat to the survival of global coral ecosystems.

The destructive practices are becoming more common as fish stocks decline and fisherman become more desperate to catch ornamental species sold within the aquarium trade.

Australian volunteer Siobhan Heatwole and colleagues at the Mars Symbioscience Mariculture Facility in Takalar, Sulawesi. Credit:Darren James

But the haphazard methods not wipe out fish in a bid to stun and capture others, but turn coral habitats into rubble.

For the past 12 months Canberra marine researcher Siobhan Heatwole​ has been involved in a frontline reef recovery project in Makassar​, a port city on the eastern Indonesia Island of Sulawesi.