‘Coral gardeners’ bring back reefs, piece by piece
OCHO RIOS, Jamaica — Everton Simpson squints at the Caribbean from his motorboat, scanning the dazzling bands of color for hints of what lies beneath. Emerald green indicates sandy bottoms. Sapphire blue lies above sea grass meadows. And deep indigo marks coral reefs. That’s where he’s headed.
He steers the boat to an unmarked spot that he knows as the “coral nursery.” “It’s like a forest under the sea,” he says, strapping on blue flippers and fastening his oxygen tank before tipping backward into the azure waters. He swims down 25 feet carrying a pair of metal shears, fishing line and a plastic crate.
On the ocean floor, small coral fragments dangle from suspended ropes, like socks hung on a laundry line. Simpson and other divers tend to this underwater nursery as gardeners mind a flower bed — slowly and painstakingly plucking off snails and fire worms that feast on immature coral.
When each stub grows to about the size of a human hand, Simpson collects them in his crate to individually “transplant” onto a reef, a process akin to planting each blade of grass in a lawn separately.
Even fastgrowing coral species add just a few inches a year. And it’s not possible to simply scatter seeds.
A few hours later, at a site called Dickie’s Reef, Simpson dives again and uses bits of fishing line to tie clusters of staghorn coral onto rocky outcroppings — a temporary binding until the coral’s limestone skeleton grows and fixes itself onto the rock. The goal is to jumpstart the natural growth of a coral reef. And so far, it’s working.
Almost everyone in Jamaica depends on the sea, including Simpson, who lives in a modest house he built himself near the island’s northern coast. The energetic 68yearold has reinvented himself several times, but always made a living from the ocean.
Once a spear fisherman and later a scuba diving instructor, Simpson started working as a “coral gardener” two years ago — part of grassroots efforts to bring Jamaica’s coral reefs back from the brink.
Coral reefs are often called “rainforests of the sea” for the astonishing diversity of life they shelter.
Just 2% of the ocean floor is filled with coral, but the branching structures — shaped like everything from reindeer antlers to human brains — sustain a quarter of all marine species. Clown fish, parrotfish, groupers and snappers lay eggs and hide from predators in the reef ’s nooks and crannies, and their presence draws eels, sea snakes, octopuses and even sharks. In healthy reefs, jellyfish and sea turtles are regular visitors.
After a series of natural and manmade disasters in the 1980s and 1990s, Jamaica lost 85% of its oncebountiful coral reefs.
But today, the corals and tropical fish are slowly reappearing.
The delicate labor of the coral gardener is only one part of restoring a reef — and for all its intricacy, it’s actually the most straightforward part.
“The coral are coming back; the fish are coming back,” says Stuart Sandin, a marine biologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla. “It’s probably some of the most vibrant coral reefs we’ve seen in Jamaica since the 1970s.”