[Coral-List] article on restoration

Mon Dec 11 09:54:21 UTC 2023

Correction to my letter: I am one among several old timers who have been
doing coral restoration for >30 years.

Again: Has the mass coral die off in the Atlantic and Caribbean swept away
most of the restoration and conservation progress made these past 30
years?   Is everything in chaos and disarray with the mass die off that
just happened?  Or are there any positive lessons learned, and is there
hope and a way forward?  Seriously- where are we going from here, if past
efforts mostly failed?

First we need to know the facts, as it has implications for the rest of the
world's coral reefs.
Please, can the various field workers report the estimated mortalities and
outcomes of the recent marine heat wave to the list ?
What is the estimated percent of wild corals and restored corals which have
died?  All species equally, or are some resistant?  Were some reefs less
impacted?  Is the mortality patchy between reefs, or uniform everywhere and
at all depths?  And lastly what remains?  This can all be preliminary
estimations.

I am proposing a way forward in my paper to help keep corals alive and in
the field over the coming decades.  Is anyone willing to argue in support
or against these strategies?  And if you disagree with them, do you have a
better idea on what is the best way forward?
This is important, as without a unified vision, we are lost.

We need to develop a systematic and coordinated strategy to wage an
effective war on climate change impacts to coral reefs.  Certainly MPAs and
clean waters are not enough, and restoration as practiced in the past
appears to have mostly failed.  If so, this is the time for self reflection
and for changing the paradigm.

Regards,

Austin

Austin Bowden-Kerby, PhD
Corals for Conservation
P.O. Box 4649 Samabula, Fiji Islands
https://www.corals4conservation.org
Publication on C4C's coral-focused climate change adaptation strategies:
https://www.mdpi.com/2673-1924/4/1/2/pdf
Film on our "Reefs of Hope" coral restoration for climate change adaptation
strategies:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BG0lqKciXAA
https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/emergency-response-to-massive-coral-bleaching/
<https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/emergency-response-to-massive-coral-bleaching/>

On Sat, Dec 9, 2023 at 9:56 AM Austin Bowden-Kerby <abowdenkerby at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Bula Doug and everyone,
>
> Sorry I have just come back from Tuvalu dealing with an approaching
> extinction level bleaching event.  Tuvalu has the most intact coral reefs I
> have ever seen, as it has never had more than a condition-one bleaching
> event.   Sadly, unless a cyclone passes nearby, these amazing coral reefs
> will soon mostly be dead skeletons.  If anyone wanted to film huge
> thick-branched staghorn coral thickets- many > 3 meters high, much like the
> old photos of Jamaica and GBR of days long past, and to record
> their demise, now is your absolute last chance.
>
> I have been doing restoration longer than anyone, and I actually agree
> with the overall conclusions of the recent Huges et al paper.  However, the
> paper leaves us hanging and their conclusions are incomplete, because they
> unfortunately did not access my recent publication and the proposed
> reinvention of the field of coral restoration, where I advocate major
> changes in restoration approach to account for the sorts of things they are
> indicating.   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/pdf
>
> Abstract: The widespread demise of coral reefs due to climate change is
> now a certainty, and investing
> in restoration without facing this stark reality risks failure. The 50
> Reefs Initiative, the dominant
> adaptation model for coral reefs is examined, and a new coral-focused
> paradigm is proposed, based
> on helping coral reefs adapt to rising temperature, to ensure that as many
> coral species as possible
> survive locally over time. With pilot sites established in six Pacific
> Island nations, genebank nurseries
> of bleaching resistant corals are secured in cooler waters, to help
> prevent their demise as heat stress
> increases. Unbleached corals selected during bleaching events are
> included. From these nurseries
> corals are harvested to create nucleation patches of genetically diverse
> pre-adapted corals, which
> become reproductively, ecologically and biologically viable at reef scale,
> spreading out over time.
> This “Reefs of Hope” paradigm, modelled on tropical forest restoration,
> creates dense coral patches,
> using larger transplants or multiple small fragments elevated on
> structures, forming fish habitat
> immediately. The fish help increase coral and substratum health, which
> presumably will enhance
> natural larval-based recovery processes. We also hypothesize that incoming
> coral recruits, attracted
> to the patch, are inoculated by heat adapted algal symbionts, facilitating
> adaptation of the wider reef.
> With global emissions out of control, the most we can hope for is to buy
> precious time for coral reefs
> by saving coral species and coral diversity that will not likely survive
> unassisted.
>
> Friends, seriously!  We have just had a mass coral die-off in the West
> Atlantic and Caribbean, and many restoration projects have had mass
> mortalities.  We must reassess the old paradigms of restoration.  If
> anything has worked or even survived in the face of >20DHW of stress, what
> might we learn from this horrific catastrophe?  How can we restore a system
> that is in the process of a free-fall collapse?   Our priorities must now
> be to secure the genetic diversity that remains and to develop strategic
> plans that take increasing heat stress into account.
>
> For reefs with strong thermal gradients, from hot to warm to cool, local
> translocation offers real potential, and so this is where I am putting all
> of my efforts.  Is this restoration?  Is it facilitated adaptation?
> Whatever we call it, the focus is on recognizing that we require emergency
> measures to secure corals from the approaching mass extinction events.
> Success should be measured in numbers of species and genotypes secured,
> numbers of reproductive patches created on the reefs most likely to remain
> below the bleaching threshold for the corals we are planting there, and so
> forth.  Every genotype should also be included in in-situ nurseries located
> in waters of lower heat stress, specially designed and ready to be shaded
> during stress events.  For areas with the financial resources every
> genotype should also be backed up in land based facilities, but we should
> never give up on wild coral populations themselves, as there is no way we
> can contain all the species which depend on living corals in closed
> systems.  Other innovative approaches such as captive breeding, probiotics,
> etc show promise and may be complementary. We need every tool that we can
> get in this struggle, but it is a race against time to secure what remains,
> so we need to work together, not in competition, but unfortunately the
> donors and limited funds often set us against each other.
>
> Right now the chances of any effective agreement leading to a reduction in
> atmospheric carbon is less likely than a nuclear war, less likely than a
> super volcano erupting, and less likely than a super solar storm throwing
> us back into the stone age!  If we do not recognize this reality, then we
> are missing our chance to save coral reefs.
>
> I strongly believe that by changing our mental and operational models, we
> can at least buy more time and prevent coral species from going extinct.
>
> Regards,
>
> Austin
>
> PS: This is the short film we put together for COP28
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SSQE0x6nSM
> We also welcome self-funded students and researchers to work with us on
> any aspect of the new models that we are proposing.
> Thus far we have been forced to survive mostly on volunteer support,
> tourism industry support, and crowdfunding- so thanks to our supporters!
>
> Austin Bowden-Kerby, PhD
> Corals for Conservation
> P.O. Box 4649 Samabula, Fiji Islands
>
> https://www.corals4conservation.org
> Publication on C4C's coral-focused climate change adaptation strategies:
> https://www.mdpi.com/2673-1924/4/1/2/pdf
> Film on our "Reefs of Hope" coral restoration for climate change
> adaptation strategies:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BG0lqKciXAA
> TEDx talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PRLJ8zDm0U
>
> https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/emergency-response-to-massive-coral-bleaching/
> <https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/emergency-response-to-massive-coral-bleaching/>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Dec 7, 2023 at 9:19 AM Douglas Fenner via Coral-List <
> coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:
>
>>        About a month ago, I posted a link to this article by Hughes et al
>> on coral reef restoration.  I read the article as documenting a lot of
>> shortcomings in coral restoration, based on lots of references.  Dead
>> silence.  No one posted any response, and no one sent me an email about
>> it.  So does that mean everyone accepts it??  Or does it mean everyone who
>> does restoration is ignoring it and hoping everyone will forget it?  Or is
>> everyone afraid to criticize it??  Seems hard to believe no one has any
>> reaction to it.
>>
>> "Based on the evidence so far, coral restoration could make a small,
>> albeit
>> expensive, contribution to this endeavor." (the endeavor of trying to save
>> reefs)
>>
>> Cheers, Doug
>>
>> Principles for coral reef restoration in the anthropocene
>>
>> *SUMMARY:  Coral reefs are critically important ecosystems that
>> support coastal societies and economies throughout the tropical
>> oceans. However, many of the world’s coral reefs are already seriously
>> degraded, especially by over-fishing, pollution, and anthropogenic
>> climate change. Consequently, a resurgence of ecological restoration
>> programs is underway in an attempt to halt or reverse reef degradation
>> and to develop new approaches in anticipation of further declines in
>> coming decades. Some forms of rehabilitation of assemblages of corals
>> may be feasible, affordable, and ethical—using currently available
>> methods and capabilities—for very small areas (typically 1 km2 ) of
>> high economic value, such as tourist sites. However, our review of the
>> current and proposed restoration interventions indicates that more
>> ambitious outcomes remain elusive and may even be counter-productive.
>> In light of these challenges, we provide recommendations and a
>> conceptual framework to guide future restoration
>> projects and emerging approaches, highlighting that coral restoration
>> is likely to continue to fail even at small scales unless climate
>> change and other anthropogenic impacts are urgently reduced.*
>> https://www.cell.com/one-earth/pdf/S2590-3322(23)00189-6.pdf
>>
>> open-access
>>
>> 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
>>
>> World's richest 1% emit as much as 5 billion people
>> https://makerichpolluterspay.org/climate-equality-report/
>>
>> Huge expansion of fossil fuels planned, will be very destructive
>>
>> https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/08/insanity-petrostates-planning-huge-expansion-of-fossil-fuels-says-un-report
>>
>> "without policy changes, the world will heat up enough by the end of the
>> century that more than 2 billion people will live in life-threatening hot
>> climates"         Will you be in that area???
>>
>> https://www.yahoo.com/news/scientists-sounding-alarm-dangerous-problem-123000792.html
>>
>> World subsidies for fossil fuels reached an all-time high of over $1
>> TRILLION in 2022, the last year for which data is available.  The
>> subsidies
>> MUST end.
>>
>>
>> https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/fossil-fuel-subsidies-must-end/
>> _______________________________________________
>> Coral-List mailing list
>> Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
>> https://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
>
>