((TITLE)) RESTORING CORAL REEFS
((TRT: 5:58))
((Producer/Camera/Editor: Genia Dulot))
((Map: Key Largo, Florida))
((Main characters: 3 female; 0 male))
((Sub characters: 0 female; 0 male))
((Blurb: Witness the devastating impact of unprecedentedly high temperatures on Florida's coral reefs and the heroic efforts of a marine conservation organization to restore and conserve these vital ecosystems facing rapid climate change.))
((NATS))
((Jennifer Pollom
Ocean Conservation Foundation; Rainbow Reef Dive Center))
Hi, I am Jennifer Pollom. I am executive director of the Ocean Conservation Foundation as well as director of conservation at Rainbow Reef Dive Center here in Key Largo.
We are just off the shore in Key Largo here, diving in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. And we are on Molasses Reef, which is one of the most beautiful and popular reefs in the Keys to dive. We’ve had unprecedentedly high temperatures down here this summer. We usually have high temperatures, we are in Florida, but it got really hot, really quickly, really early here. And the corals we are finding really are not responding very well. We are seeing a lot of bleaching all over the reef, especially with the branching corals, the staghorns and the elkhorns, which are some of the most important species to have on the reef.
((NATS))
((Jennifer Pollom
Ocean Conservation Foundation; Rainbow Reef Dive Center))
When temperatures get too high, they expel the algae that lives in their cell wall, and that’s what gives them about 90% of their food intake. The algae photosynthesize, and then the coral uses that for food. When they bleach, they expel all that algae, and that’s why they are white because the algae is what gives it a color. And unfortunately, with the rate at which we saw the bleaching come on, we are looking at a lot of mortality.
((NATS))
((Roxane Boonstra
Coral Restoration Foundation))
Corals, in some way, shape, or form, are older than dinosaurs. They are older than your favorite shark or crocodile. They are actually older than land plants. So in that 500 million years, they survived multiple natural cycles of warming, and multiple natural cycles of cooling. And in that time, they evolved, they adapted, they acclimated to the environments, they shifted north and south around the world, to form one of the most biodiverse ecosystems on this planet that we simply call coral reefs.
((NATS))
((Roxane Boonstra
Coral Restoration Foundation))
Since 1970, Florida’s coral reefs have actually decreased in biodiversity and structure. We actually lost 98 to 99% of our original stony coral habitat. Coral Restoration Foundation was founded in 2007, and we are the largest marine conservation, non-profit restoration organization working in the Florida Keys. And we aim to be a leader in the field globally and help where we can.
((NATS))
((Roxane Boonstra
Coral Restoration Foundation))
Welcome to the Tavernier Nursery. This is the largest ocean-based nursery in the world, and it’s the largest nursery that we have. It is home to 500 trees, which is about 30,000 corals at full capacity. There is nowhere else in the world that you can swim through a living forest of coral like you can in this nursery. There is just one of them. We have multiple nurseries. Together, they hold 50,000 corals, and this our biggest, making up 30,000 of them.
((NATS))
((Roxane Boonstra
Coral Restoration Foundation))
Our founder, Ken Nedimyer, developed the coral tree, which is now recognized as being the best way to grow large quantities of certain species of coral really, really quickly. The coral tree works really well partly because it’s mid-water. And so, since the coral is vertical in water column, as water passes by, the corals can get the maximum amount of oxygen, and nutrients, and just water flow, so that they’re really in an optimal environment. And that’s actually what allows corals to grow much faster on coral trees than they do in their natural reef environment.
Once the coral gets to be about a football size, we’ll harvest the coral from the tree, and then we’ll return it to a nearby reef.
((NATS))
((Bailey Thomasson
Coral Restoration Foundation))
The heat was not a total surprise to us. We knew that because it was an El Niño event, and from predictions from government agencies, we knew that is was probably going to be a pretty hot summer. We partner with land facilities to be able to bring corals out of the ocean, out of those in-situ nurseries into these land-based facilities, so that we could control the water temperatures.
The rescue effort came in two different phases. The first phase that we did was to safeguard the genetic diversity that we have. So we wanted to make sure that we had small samples of every single genotype that we have. Once that was done, we kind of went to stock management. We pulled out all the corals that were looking the best and healthy here, so that we can safeguard that stock, so that we can hopefully take them back after the summer and heat event is over and continue to use them in the restoration process.
((NATS))
((Roxane Boonstra
Coral Restoration Foundation))
Coral bleaching is actually a natural response from the coral to a warming or a sudden change in its environment. The problem is when that change is too extreme, and/or it happens for too long. And so, in this particular case in 2023, we saw warming starting to happen a full month before the average summer temperatures peaked. And so now, the corals had to work with these extreme temperatures that were unprecedented in our history, and that’s why we are seeing bleaching at such a stronger threshold, because the temperatures are so much higher and for so much longer.
((Bailey Thomasson
Coral Restoration Foundation))
The climate changes. It’s time and time again throughout history. We’ve had natural climate swings, but it happens slow enough for corals to be able to adapt and evolutionize to deal with that. But the fact of the matter is that the anthropogenic factors of climate change that are happening right now are causing the climate to change so rapidly and our waters to warm so quickly, that it’s too fast for corals and many of marine mammals and animals that rely on coral reefs, to be able to adapt to that and deal with it.
((NATS))