How marine organisations are saving coral reefs
HEALTHY marine ecosystems are essential for human well-being, and millions of people around the world rely on coral reefs for food, protection, recreation, medicine, cultural connection and economic opportunities. So the decline of coral reefs is not just an ocean-lover’s issue; it’s a global problem that requires collaborative action.
“The situation with coral reefs is quite alarming,” said Titouan Bernicot, founder of Coral Gardeners, a coral restoration collective in Moorea, French Polynesia. Studies have found that live global coral coverage has declined by 50% since the 1950s and is expected to decline by about 70 to 90% in the next 20 years.
Danny Demartini, chief scientific officer and co-founder of Kuleana Coral Restoration, a non-profit organisation in Hawaii, said multiple stressors are overburdening corals.
“There’s an ecological equilibrium where coral growth rates can withstand some amount of natural pressure from waves, storms, some runoff,” he said. But, he added, the accumulation of human-generated environmental stressors – including pollution, changes in sedimentation from development, increasing ocean temperatures due to global warming, and destruction caused by trampling and anchoring on the reef – has disrupted the balance.
“It’s becoming harder for coral growth to keep up.”
Although the coronavirus pandemic forced many industries to press pause, it had the opposite effect on some coral restoration efforts.
Demartini and the team went to work in the water. They collected coral colonies that have broken off and, after doing a health assessment, reattached them to the reef. They’ve replanted 200 colonies with diameters of 30 to 60cm, and they plan to reattach 1 000 to 2 000 more in the coming year.
In Hawaii, where corals grow at a slower pace, Demartini said it would take 30 to 50 years to grow a coral colony of the same size; direct restoration has an immediate effect.
The reef at Hanauma Bay on Oahu also benefited from the pandemic pause when Hawaii closed, so did the nature preserve for eight months.
Friends of Hanauma Bay president Lisa Bishop said that in just a couple of months, it showed signs of regeneration. With no snorkellers kicking up sand or leaching sunscreen into the water, clarity improved by 56%, and, Bishop said, they started seeing coral recruitment (the process of coral larvae settlement, crucial for growth and recovery) on the inner reef.
Seizing the moment in this rare tourism intermission, Friends of Hanauma Bay proposed a coral restoration pilot project in July 2020. The Board of Land and Natural Resources approved it in September, and in October, corals – grown at the Hawaii Coral
Restoration Nursery – were outplanted in Hanauma Bay, inspiring a private foundation to provide funding for endemic corals to be outplanted in the bay to restore corals destroyed by marine debris. “Collaboration is the gateway to achievement,” Bishop said.
Hanauma Bay reopened in December with coronavirus-related restrictions: reduced hours of operation, reduced capacity (720 visitors a day compared with 3 000 to 6 000 a day pre-pandemic), an increased entrance fee for non-residents and a reservations system. Although the state made these changes to protect human health, Bishop said continuing them beyond the pandemic would help protect the reef and improve the visitor experience, too.
In the Maldives, Reefscapers, a team of consultants and marine biologists that partners with hotels on reef restoration projects, was able to salvage 5 000 branching colonies and 2 500 massive colonies from Gulhi Falhu in the South Malé Atoll that would have otherwise been destroyed by development. | The Washington Post