[Coral-List] Battling climate change versus coral reef restoration: widening the discussion

[Luiz Rocha]

Hi Les, that's an interesting discussion and one that I've been thinking
about a lot recently. I really don't care about who came up with the
"super" term first or how it's used today, but I do care about the
restoration debate. And in this case I think I am on Colin's side. I do
100% agree with Terry (and Colin, from what I read) that the greatest
threat to corals today is climate change, and the need to address it is
urgent, but I think that even as we address climate change we need to help
corals in other ways. Here is why:

https://theconversation.com/what-would-happen-to-the-climate-if-we-stopped-emitting-greenhouse-gases-today-35011

The article above summarizes results from different papers that show that
even if we stopped CO2 emissions today, Earth's temperature would take
decades to stabilize and would still be higher than pre-industrial levels.
So, to save corals we cannot solely focus on curbing CO2 emissions. To me,
restoration does three things:

1) It buys corals time. Restoration can keep populations going or make them
viable again, even when done on a small scale (if done the right way). And
it can just help them survive long enough to be around when climate
stabilizes.

2) By keeping populations going, it gives them more chances to adapt
naturally. Every bleaching event is a severe bottleneck, and everything
that survives has a big chance of surviving the next bleaching event. But
if the closest coral colony of that species is 10km away, their gametes
will probably never meet. Restoration (again if done the right way) can
help corals adapt by connecting those stragglers.

3) It gives people hope. When people realize that temperatures won't go
back to normal any time soon even if we stop CO2 emissions now, they will
simply think that there is nothing that can be done for corals and will let
them go. I don't want to see that happening.

Having said all of that, I would probably still be on Terry's side if I
thought the fight climate change was competing with resources for coral
restoration. But I don't think they are. I think the climate change fight
is a global one and has to be mostly driven by governmental and energy
industry initiatives, whereas coral restoration is driven by local and
foundation support. As you know, my views are very different when it comes
to MPAs. I think very large (and based on everything I read, not effective)
pelagic MPAs are sucking the few resources available for marine protection
in tropical countries, and that's a big problem.

Cheers,

Luiz

*Luiz A. Rocha, PhD*
Associate Curator and Follett Chair of Ichthyology
California Academy of Sciences
p. 415.379.5370
f.  415.379.5731
LRocha at calacademy.org
Academic Website
<https://www.calacademy.org/staff/ibss/ichthyology/luiz-a-rocha>

55 Music Concourse Drive
Golden Gate Park
San Francisco, CA 94118

Twitter <https://twitter.com/CoralReefFish> | Instagram
<https://www.instagram.com/coralreeffish/>

On Thu, May 3, 2018 at 10:38 AM, Kaufman, Leslie S <lesk at bu.edu> wrote:

> Dear Colleagues,
>
> Colin Foord and I have been having a digital conversation that might be of
> interest to a wider audience.  Colin wrote an interesting and provocative
> blog addressing the dialectic that is emerging over the best strategy for
> bettering the lot of coral reefs in this era of anthropogenic climate
> change.  The divide is between those who underscore the need to battle
> climate change, versus others investing heavily in manual coral reef
> restoration.  Of course, we have also been debating this issue here on
> Coral-List.
>
> Colin’s blog can be found here:
>
> https://medium.com/@coralmorphologic/on-super-
> corals-and-where-to-find-them-or-a-cautionary-tale-of-using-
> memes-in-science-1b4f6a9ace3c
>
> A wider discussion could be very valuable, especially in light of the
> National Academy study, and particularly given that some of us are in the
> midst of planning a second international workshop on coral reef restoration
> for December of this year.
>
> ***
>
> Dear Colin,
>
> Dialectics are useful in communication, but can also undermine our
> understanding of a complex world.  Terry Hughes may be in shock from what
> has happened recently on the Great Barrier Reef but he is not wrong about
> the importance of addressing anthropogenic climate change.  If we bet on
> manual restoration as an exclusive tool for maintaining coral reefs we will
> fail; and if we bet on restoring the climate of 200 years ago there will be
> no coral reefs by the time we succeed.
>
> As you yourself point out, in Miami something is “super” if it is way
> above other things in magnitude.  The magnitude we are interested in in the
> case of reef-building corals, is their survival.  Interventions to ensure
> the survival of a living system always have two components.  One is
> stabilizing and centering the environmental envelope over the reaction
> norms of the system, so that it can feasibly adapt.  I suppose we could
> call this achieving a super environment.  Terry wants us to pay attention
> to achieving a super environment.  The other is ensuring that that
> adaptation occurs, and also continues, allowing life to continue adaptively
> tracking its environment in perpetuity.  Any organism that can do this is
> pretty super in my book.  Those are our two super duper strategic options:
> ameliorate the environment, and accelerate adaptation.  Environmental
> amelioration itself is hierarchical, ranging from how we steward our
> watersheds, to how we steward the biosphere.  All of these pieces must be
> attended to and in place for us to succeed, and all have a limited scope
> within which they can be manipulated.  When they align, then all the
> necessary elements fall back into place and a coral reef re-emerges.  Or a
> forest, or a city, or an entire vanua…or a world.
>
> In other words, seeing the whole at all times is more important than being
> super.  Let’s keep our eyes on the whole.  That, after all, is the goal in
> attempting to heal the world: to restore wholeness.  People had this
> figured out a very long time ago and it is a core mythology of all the
> world’s great religions for a reason.  So, may you have wholeness, and may
> we have coral reefs.
>
> Les
>
> Les Kaufman
> Professor of Biology
> Boston University Marine Program
> Faculty Fellow, Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future
> and
> Conservation Fellow
> Betty and Gordon Moore Center for Science
> Conservation International
> lesk at bu.edu<mailto:lesk at bu.edu>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Coral-List mailing list
> Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> http://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list