South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
PRESERVING PARADISE
Cruise line partners with Nova Southeastern University to help restore coral reefs
After its multimillion-dollar makeover, a private island in the Bahamas has become a regular stop for passengers on many Norwegian Cruise Line ships. Great Stirrup Cay, nearly 130 miles east of Miami, now features white sandy beaches, saltwater lagoons, restaurants and bars and an underwater sculpture garden. And it’s going a big step further as a team of South Florida researchers begin an environmental mission to restore the underwater oasis around the island — the coral reef.
This year, 18 of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings’ ships across its three brands — Norwegian Cruise Line, Oceania Cruises and Regent Seven Seas Cruises — will drop anchor near the cruise line’s 250-acre island, which it bought in 1977.
Over time, repeated visits by ships and people, diving and fish- ing, warming waters due to climate change, and other environmental issues can take a toll on any island habitat, especially on coral reef.
So Miami-based Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings has partnered with Nova Southeastern University’s Halmos College of
Na t u ra l S c i e n c e s a n d Oceanography in Dania Beach to help restore coral reefs near the island.
Restoring coral reefs
Since last year, NSU’s marine researchers have been steadily building three coral reefs around Great Stirrup Cay.
David Gilliam, associate professor and research scientist for NSU’s coral reef restoration, assessment and monitoring lab, has been working with graduate students to grow corals from fragments and then transplant them to damaged reefs near the island.
Initially, they collected a variety of 10-centimeter fragments or branches from wild coral colonies in the Bahamas, with permission of the Bahamian government, and brought them back to an underwater nursery near the island, he said. They’re being grown into larger pieces and then replanted on Great Stirrup Cay’s coral reef.
NSU researchers dive 20 to 50 feet to tend to coral, which is parallel to the north shore of the island. Norwegian is picking up the tab for divers to travel to the island, as well as their equipment, Gilliam said.
“Generally the conditions that led to the reef being degraded are still there. We’re providing nature with assistance,” Gilliam said. “We’re not going to solve all the problems, but it gives reefs more time as we address greater issues.”
There are many environmental issues when it comes to the ocean.
Norwegian “wanted to identify opportunities to have significant impact on the environment,” said James Mitchell, vice president of marine health, safety, environment and medical. The worldwide cruise line also has other environmental initiatives including helping a bird medical center in Alaska “go green” and joining the Washington, D.C.-based Ocean Conservancy’s Trash Free Seas Alliance to reduce trash in the ocean.
In choosing a project, “it boils down to looking at where we bring our passengers around the world. We can’t do something at every port. So we addressed some of the biggest concerns — what would have the best impact,” Mitchell said.
Norwegian has committed $500,000 over five years to the NSU marine researchers, beginning in 2017, though work didn’t actually begin until last year.
A threat for the reefs
Coral reefs have long suffered from the physical impact of ship groundings, sedimentation from poor coastal management, algae and other environmental is- sues due to c l i ma t e changes, s a i d Sa n d ra Brooke, a coral ecologist who is on the research fac- ulty at Florida State University.
“There’s a whole suite of things that humans do to reefs,” she said. “In the Caribbean and Florida Keys, there are some serious issues.”
She said while cruise lines are well regulated, facing lawsuits and fines for damaging reefs, sometimes ships accidentally are blown off course and can run aground due to a storm or an anchor line can break, damaging a reef.
I n 2 015, No r we g i a n Cruise Line’s Norwegian Dawn ship ran aground on a reef off Bermuda on its return to Boston, as reported by the Boston Globe. The cruise line tweeted that a technical issue “caused the steering malfunction,” according to the article.
But that incident didn’t damage any live coral, according to Norwegian’s Mitchell, who said the region was set to be dredged and the cruise line was not fined.
Restoring damaged coral
Brooke said damaged corals can be restored, if the system is basically healthy. “There’s a good chance it should come back again,” Brooke said.
“The problem with a lot of coral reef restoration is trying to restore a habitat that is sick,” she said. If the area has been over-fished, is next to a development or being dived constantly, “restoration efforts are less likely to succeed.”
NSU and Norwegian is also discussing a coral-reef educational program for cruise line passengers.
“It’s one of the ideas we’ve thrown around,” Mitchell said. The program could introduce the coral reef restoration on the island to cruise line passengers and educate them on environmental impact.
Mitchell said he believes passengers would be interested.
“People are paying attention, and they should — climate change, wildlife protection, trash in the water,” he said, as some examples. “That’s a good thing.”