Growth, Artificial Alternatives, and Restoration
"There is still hope for our oceans"
It’s time to wake up. Our reckless fishing, incessant pollution, and climate change are destroying our reefs and have already succeeded in taking irreversible tolls on many. But this article is about hope, and with one quarter of ocean life and the state of our coasts relying on coral reefs, we need as much hope as we can get. As humanity grows increasingly aware of the damage we’ve done to the exquisite oceanic structures, we are desperately trying to develop methods of saving them.
For some, this means restoration. Scientists focused on restoration are asking the question of how we can foster the growth of new coral and/or rejuvenate existing populations. Other activists have come up with innovative, man-made alternatives to reefs to serve reef dwelling creatures that have been robbed of their homes in recent years of devastating destruction. Still others are taking a different approach, trying to reverse fatal bleaching before it is too late to save the coral. With all of these methods and more being employed in this righteous struggle, there is so much hope for our reefs. Keep reading to learn what others are doing and what you should be doing, too.
Restoration
One of the most important drivers of hope for coral reef restoration through new growth goes by the name of Dr. David Vaughan. Through a happy accident reminiscent of the discovery of penicillin, Vaughan found a way to grow coral at rates fifty times those of tried-and-true but agonizingly slow traditional methods. What went from gradual growth over the course of several years became rapid multiplication to the tune of 1000 corals in a matter of months. While caring for his slow-growing coral in his lab one day, Vaughan mistakenly broke a small piece. The technique of micro-fragmenting was born of this accident when he noticed that the damaged area had rapidly regrown and was thriving.
Not only were small portions of the damaged coral better off from the breakage, but through future experiments he realized that this coral, against its nature, merged with other coral in close proximity rather than attacking it. Biologists have clung to this method of coral planting as a possible, if temporary, savior of the species, but they are also having to account for the conditions they will be submitting new coral to. Careful experimentation by minds like Andrew Baker at the University of Miami have developed ways to increase the resilience, especially to heat, of the coral they will grow through micro-fragmenting so that they are not sending planted coral straight to their doom. There may be coral graveyards in oceans across the world, but methods like micro-fragmenting make the future of our oceans look a whole lot brighter.
Watch Dr. Vaughan's interview with The Atlantic about his discovery. Credit: https://blog.padi.com/video/breakthrough-coral-reef-restoration/
Artificial Alternatives
If micro-fragmenting is innovative, then these methods for creating man-made reefs are ingenious. Though these can only ever replicate some of the features of true coral reefs, there are promising efforts being made to utilize man-made reefs as attractors of marine life and assets to their habitat. There are a number of different materials that can be used to create these artificial structures, some more eco-friendly than others. Non-biodegradable materials such as old tires, cinder blocks, and even construction debris have been plunged to the depths of the ocean as reef stand-ins in the past, but there are obvious drawbacks to using unnatural materials such as these.
Man-made reefs have since been advanced by more environmentally friendly recycling of materials. Perhaps the most intriguing of these is the oyster reef. Oysters are the conservation hero that the oceans need and biologists love. During their life, oysters contribute to improved water quality in addition to protecting marine plant life. They are capable of forming oyster reefs, or large mounds of oysters, when they fasten themselves hard surfaces and pile on top of each other. These reefs are similarly beneficial to marine ecosystems as their coral counterparts. Recently, scientists have had to get crafty as natural oyster reefs suffer a similar fate to coral and feel the effects of overfishing by combining both living and dead oyster shells and depositing them into partially man-made reefs.
Another re-purposing mission comes in the form of the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement’s Rigs to Reefs policy. When an oil company wants to construct an off-shore oil drilling site on the Federal Outer Continental Shelf, they must obtain a lease to do so and this has been the case for decades. But it has only been since 2013 that the BSEE has formed a solution to the sudden uprooting of marine habitats caused by previous terms of an OCS lease which necessitated the removal and disposal of the oil drilling sites upon lease expiration.
Because it seemed that fish and other sea creatures were making themselves comfortable among temporary oil drilling sites, the Rigs to Reefs program has been adopted to allow companies to “reef” their structures at the end of a lease rather than removing them and discarding them on land. The program requires any company interested in converting their rig into a reef to comply with many different requirements and make various proposals for the conversion to be legitimate. This is a more economical option, and a partial solution to reef disappearance that also keeps the mammoth oil structures out of landfills.
Other Promising Endeavors
"Restoring our reefs is a promising endeavor that comes in many forms"
Some conservationists are setting their sights on rehabilitating existing coral reefs instead of trying to create new ones. Coral can come back from extensive damage using a variety of carefully planned restoration methods, such as the “spider” technique, reef transplantation, and bleaching reversal efforts meant to cool damaged reefs. Those spider techniques calls for the installation of thousands of small structures, the “spiders” of the spider technique, across the length of a damaged reef. Scientists and divers then attach small coral transplants to these structures and watch them multiply, revitalizing the existing reef in a large-scale way that seems financially and environmentally viable.
Reef transplantation such as this is one way that scientists are rescuing bits of damaged coral and moving them to areas where their chance of success is higher. Sometimes that means moving them to an off-site laboratory until they’re healthier or to another reef somewhere else in the ocean that needs help. Reef restoration efforts to reverse the effects of coral bleaching may resemble those of Reef Managers for the Climate Foundation that design creative thermal management systems. These are designed to bring reefs to more optimal, and less deadly, temperatures than climate change has afforded them. Using pumps and a thermo-electric cooling system, scientists for the Foundation have been able to reverse and then stop the bleaching of select coral reefs. Restoring our reefs is a promising endeavor that comes in many forms.
What You Can Do
Global reef rescue efforts are heartening, but maybe you’re like me and you’re not a brilliant scientist directly affecting the survival of our world’s coral. You’re not out there transplanting coral, cooling it down, or designing new methods for saving it, but that doesn’t mean that there is nothing you can do to contribute to a coral-rich future. There are steps you can take on a daily basis to do your part in global conservation efforts, and they start with low-waste living. Reducing the amount of waste that you produce, which will likely end up in our oceans and harm our coral and other marine life, is a surefire way of flipping your impact on our oceans into a positive one. If your current lifestyle includes discarding a lot of garbage, this transition might not be easy or quick, but read this post for some fairly easy first steps.
Another action you can take is to be more conscious of what you are demanding from the ocean. Consuming threatened fish species and/or blindly contributing to overfishing are just some of the ways that millions of people are hurting our oceans without knowing it. Always be mindful of what fish you consume and where it came from. Reducing your carbon footprint however you can will help to slow the deterioration of reefs as well, and informing others is a great way to drive these efforts home. When in doubt, you can always donate your discarded oyster shells to local recycling foundations, such as the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, for use in oyster repopulation and reef construction efforts. And remember, there is still hope for our oceans.
