[Coral-List] Coral restoration trashing

Wed Aug 23 00:22:02 UTC 2023

I agree with Austin, these problems (at least in Australia) are driven by
the funding bodies /politics that favour "high tech-quick fix" projects
over more grounded conservation biology. The coal/gas industry is huge in
this country and they poison not only our air and climate, but also much of
our society, including our science. We have had a change of government
recently, so hopefully this situation might change..... a little.  It is no
coincidence that one of the biggest CR trashers is based in Australia; as a
(the?) top-ranked coral reef researcher, this person should be on the
boards of these funding bodies and research institutes, to at least provide
some balance and common sense.

PAUL MUIR,
Private Consultant

On Tue, 22 Aug 2023 at 20:08, Austin Bowden-Kerby <abowdenkerby at gmail.com>
wrote:

> 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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