[Coral-List] Coral restoration trashing

Tue Aug 22 10:08:09 UTC 2023

Paul,

I completely agree that what has been going on in Australia with high tech
methods and flashy science is a diversion.  I applied to the Great Barrier
Reef Challenge when Australia just got going with supporting restoration,
and even though I had proof of concept that what we were doing worked very
well, the donor said they did not want to fund anything already proven, so
they funded cloud brightening, 3-D printing of fake corals, giant fans to
cool the waters, and a coral planting robot.

This makes me want to distance myself from the misleading hype by no longer
calling what I do restoration.  I did restoration in the past and most of
it was killed off by mass bleaching.  What I do now is not restoration, it
is coral focused adaptation and endangered coral species conservation. You
are spot-on about the importance of knowing the status of each coral
species, as we can then know better which species most need our help.  My
restoration worker contacts in the Caribbean did not fully understand my
point of view until just recently, and I fear that most coral restoration
practitioners in Australia might still think they have two more decades,
but that is because they have not seen the new global mean seawater
temperature data, which today reached an all time high of 21.16C.
https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/

I now focus our efforts on collecting bleaching resistant corals and on
local translocation from hot to cooler reefs to create secure gene bank
nurseries much more than outplanting, as we are preparing for the severe
marine heat waves that are coming. Once we have more extensive collections
secured, then we will begin outplanting into nucleation patches, on cooler
degraded reefs and planting these resistant corals into patches amongst
sensitive populations to encourage sharing of symbionts through natural
means.

Australia and the USA  are the two nations where millions have been spent
on coral restoration, but over here in the developing world, in spite of
wasting incredible amounts of time of our time writing proposals, we have
only gotten crumbs.  We do not rely on scuba gear, as we can not afford it,
so we are confined to the shallows. We just got our first boat his year,
after all this time.  Even then, we have had amazing success developing
methods which mimic natural processes and reboot natural recovery.

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 Tue, Aug 22, 2023 at 9:04 PM Paul Muir via Coral-List <
coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:

> Not involved in Coral Restoration or trashing CR, but I certainly agree
> with some of the criticism. Billions of dollars are now being poured into
> CR by governments and big mining in lieu of reducing their carbon
> emissions. These big players are touting CR as a super-high-tech means of
> "saving the reef" while continuing with business as usual. High-tech
> (sci-fi?) plays a big part of selling this to the public: artificial
> intelligence, underwater robots, genetic engineering, 3D printing etc.
> figure heavily in the marketing. Arguably, CR is also diverting funds and
> researchers away from critical conservation science, for example the recent
> Red List revision concluded that there was a chronic lack of data on the
> conservation status of the majority of our ~750 coral species. We have no
> clue how the majority of coral species are faring, their regional
> population size, risk of extinction, susceptibility to bleaching etc.
> Collecting this basic data would cost a tiny fraction of the CR budget, but
> it's being ignored.
>
> I'm certainly a fan of many of the CR projects, but the trashers do have a
> point at times?
>
> On Tue, 22 Aug 2023 at 01:37, Luiz Rocha via Coral-List <
> coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:
>
> > Alright, I've had it. I am sick and tired of the constant trashing and
> > criticism that coral restoration projects and that any science even
> > remotely related to restoration are getting. Even though I don't work on
> it
> > (directly or indirectly) I know a lot of scientists working on coral
> > restoration. And I also know a lot of restoration projects. Not a single
> > one of them has ever said that the solution for the coral reef crysis is
> > coral restoration. This is hyperbole created either by the media and the
> > critics of coral restoration.
> >
> > Now more specifically about the critiques to every kind of science
> related
> > to restoration. If we put together all of the dollars that went into
> coral
> > restoration science, in all of human history, that adds up to (very
> > graciously) about half a billion dollars. For those that keep saying that
> > we can solve the climate crisis with coral restoration dollars, please,
> > please, tell me how 500 million dollars would solve climate change. If
> you
> > sit down and really think about it, I hope you realize that climate
> change
> > is not a money problem. We have the money and the solutions to do it.
> What
> > we do not have is the political will.
> >
> > And for those that keep saying that corals in air conditioned aquaria are
> > not a solution, rhinos in zoos aren't either, so should we kill them all
> > and be done with it? The only surviving individuals of unique genetic
> > lineages of several species that used to be in Florida are now only alive
> > in aquaria. So let's use the few hundreds of thousands of dollars being
> > used to keep them alive to convince Ron De Santis and Donald Trump that
> > climate change is real. Yeah, that's gonna work. These dollars (even if
> > dollars could solve climate change, which they won't) are not competing
> > with climate change dollars. That's like asking to stop funding coral
> > taxonomy because giving coral species names is only rearranging the
> chairs
> > in the Titanic. That argument can be used for any branch of science that
> is
> > not fighting climate change. And it is not true.
> >
> > So, get off your horses, fight climate change the best way you can, and
> > keep doing science, even if it's not related to climate change. Because
> it
> > will help.
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Luiz
> >
> > Luiz A. Rocha, Ph.D.
> > Curator and Follett Chair of Ichthyology
> > Co-Director, Hope For Reefs Initiative
> >
> > California Academy of Sciences
> >
> > p. 415.379.5370
> >
> > 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/>
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