[Coral-List] new paper on coral restoration

[Austin Bowden-Kerby]

Thanks very much for posting Doug,

The paper will be of interest to any who still feel that coral restoration
is "well meaning but misguided", as well as to those who fully support
coral restoration.

The paper is important in three ways: 1. It re-defines coral restoration
within a natural ecological recovery context, 2. It uses logical arguments
and facts to challenge the basic assumptions of the 50 reefs initiative
(presently the only widely accepted climate change adaptation strategy),
proposing major modifications, and 3. It moves beyond no-take areas and
clean water adaptation strategies, to establish coral-focused coral reef
adaptation strategies which actively build resistance to coral bleaching.

The open access PDF version can be found here:
https://www.mdpi.com/2673-1924/4/1/2/pdf
And a 22 minute narrated powerpoint presentation on the content of the
paper with photos of the work can be found here:
https://youtu.be/arkeSGXfKMk

The proposed restoration paradigm does not focus on numbers of corals
planted or square meters of reefs restored, as the vastness of coral reefs
makes that approach largely unworkable at large scale.  But the restoration
people need not worry, as the new model incorporates and uses our older
restoration methods, only applying them differently.  Many
restoration programs are already using elements of the strategy.

The "Reefs of Hope" model is based on new breakthroughs in tropical forest
restoration, where fewer, larger saplings are used to create "nucleation
patches", which attracts birds, which in turn facilitate natural recovery
processes: removing insect predators, fertilizing the trees, and bringing
in seeds, resulting in a healthy an expanding patch, which increases in
diversity over time and impacts a much wider area.  The new coral
restoration paradigm creates these dense nucleation patches by using larger
coral colonies and corals attached to elevated frames and reef ball type
structures (for urchins and lobsters), creating significant habitat
structure from day one, which in turn quickly restores fish, sea urchin,
and crustacean populations.  It is this restored functional community which
in turn drives natural recovery processes, increasing the health and growth
of the corals, protecting the corals, cleaning the substratum around the
patch, and accelerating natural larval recruitment and symbiont sharing
processes. The model also focuses on the restoration of coral reproduction
of declining coral species, and on bleaching resistance via local
translocation of heat adapted corals from hot pocket reefs to cooler reefs.

While many elements of the model still require testing, and modifications
and refinements will certainly be made over time, we have active sites in
Fiji, and extension sites in 5 other Pacific Island Nations, with high
levels of indigenous community involvement, and where proof of concept
experiments are now ongoing.  We ultimately hope to partner with all those
of similar vision in the creation of a more proactive, unified
coral-focused global strategy, using these methods in combination with
other breakthroughs in areas such as micro-fragmentation, larval-based
technologies, probiotics, etc. via other partners, and all nested within
more conventional strategies such as no-take areas and pollution control
measures to save coral reefs.

Coral reefs need a major breakthrough, or they will all be gone before
humanity can get ourselves under control.  We need to buy more time!

Kind Regards,

Austin

Austin Bowden-Kerby, PhD
Corals for Conservation
P.O. Box 4649 Samabula, Fiji Islands
https://www.corals4conservation.org
https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/emergency-response-to-massive-coral-bleaching/
<https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/emergency-response-to-massive-coral-bleaching/>







On Sat, Apr 8, 2023 at 12:06 AM Douglas Fenner via Coral-List <
coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:

> Coral-focused climate change adaptation and restoration based on
>              accelerating natural processes: Launching the “Reefs of Hope”
> paradigm.
>
> https://www.mdpi.com/2673-1924/4/1/2
>
> Cheers, Doug
>
> --
> Douglas Fenner
> Lynker Technologies, LLC, Contractor
> NOAA Fisheries Service
> Pacific Islands Regional Office
> Honolulu
> and:
> Coral Reef Consulting
> PO Box 997390
> Pago Pago, American Samoa 96799-6298  USA
>
> Degrowth can work - here's how science can help
> https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-04412-x
>
> CoP 27, CoP 17, the party's over https://www.petersalebooks.com/?p=3324
>
> Fixing methane leaks is a fast and vast help for climate change, and pays
> for itself.
> https://www.yahoo.com/news/why-fixing-methane-leaks-oil-132702814.html
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