[Coral-List] EIA Supporters of Coral Reef Destruction and distracting sophistry

Wed Aug 23 22:39:49 UTC 2023

Dear All,

It is great to read increased participation at the Coral List over the last
week. However, I was expecting more scientific answers, links to papers and
scientific facts supporting experiments based on breaking coral colonies
such as increased survivorship, fitness and biodiversity of coral
fragments kept at nurseries, labs and outplants versus coral colonies left
untouched in controlled sites where there is effective protection from
local threats. Control in experiments is critical for internal validity,
which allows to establish a cause-and-effect relationship between variables.

It is a waste of energy to try to label good or bad guys without supporting
arguments, when at the end of the day, all agree with the money driven
decision making, lack of political will and the developers pressure to hire
and contract restoration practitioners who will support their
megaprojects.  So let us stop the distracting sophistry to agree that coral
restoration is treating the symptoms, not the causes as Dough clearly
mentioned.

This message has a new subject as we are criticizing ONLY the supporters of
unsustainable development with coral restoration. Academic and
scientific research institutions should not feel alluded by our direct
questions if they are not involved in those practices around the world.

Replying to some messages:

Luiz: We enjoyed your twitter posts about coral reef fish so we were
expecting your comments about the inconvenience of removing Butterfly fish
and improving fish restoration practices as coral reef restoration should
be viewed as integral ecosystem intervention not just with coral species.

Austin: We met at the ICRS 2016 in Hawaii and agree on some of your points
https://www.facebook.com/ICRObservatory/photos/pb.100064541925895.-2207520000/1068951883140873/?type=3

That is why, I quote your lines as we agree on those. "It is a minority
voice at this point.  Since 2016, I have been trying to convince other
restoration practitioners to stop using the numbers of coral fragments
planted as their primary measure of success, but rather to focus on
bleaching resistance and the number of coral species and genotypes secured
from demise, within areas of reef with good prospects for survival into the
future.  In my view, each coral species should be viewed as an endangered
species over the long term, and our goal being to do everything we can to
keep each species alive and genetically diverse and in reproductive
condition.  Few have incorporated this into their work and so now we see
the result".

Paul: We agree with your crystal clear messages about what without passions
of hurt egos, we should conclude about how to handle the decision making
driven by the funding bodies /politics that favour "high tech-quick fix"
projects over more grounded conservation biology. Top-ranked coral reef
conservation researchers e.g. *Jeremy Jackson, Nancy Knowlton, Terry
Hughes, Peter Glynn, Peter Sales, and other well known scientists *should
be on the boards to evaluate the effectiveness of the practices restoring
the coral (And other coral reef taxas/ organisms) since most of the money
(from the funding bodies, governmens, international initiatives and
research institutes) is going to restoration projects, to at least
provide some balance and common sense.

We need to stop serving a distracting fallacy trying to divide us again
between the ones who do (ecological, social and economics) research to find
and tackle causes of coral reef degradation and the ones who receive the
funding to do coral restoration by allowing EIAs and government budget
expenditures to focus only (or mainly) on breaking millions of coral
colonies to distract the attention from find alternatives to destructive
practices and development projects that cause local and global threats to
coral reefs of the world.
It is a pleasure to listen to new voices in the Coral-List.
Nohora Galvis
ICRS World Reef Award Winner
ICRO Transdisciplinary Researcher

*International Coral Reef ObservatoryFollow us on
Facebook.com/ICRObservatoryon Twitter / Instagram / YouTube
ICR_Observatory*

 El mar, 22 ago 2023 a las 4:06, Paul Muir via Coral-List (<
coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>) escribió:

> 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/>