Birthing a New Coral Reef

Finding Bright Spots amongst the Gloom of the Global Coral Reef

The impact of human behaviour on the Amazon Rainforest is so well documented because it’s easy to see and reach, however coral reefs can often get missed out of the limelight, because they’re underwater. It’s almost like because we can’t see them, we pretend not to notice how badly they’ve been affected by global warming. However, corals are facing one of the toughest times. Prolonged marine heatwaves are on the rise, and as this happens, corals expel their symbiotic algae which causes them to lose their colour and become weak and vulnerable. Whilst pollution is a threat, global warming is the biggest danger for the survival of our reefs. In October, the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network released the first ever report, collating statistics on the state of our coral reefs over 12,00 sites over 40 years. The overall report was a loss of 14% of coral from 2009-2018 which is a devastating 11,700 sqkm.

Signs of Recovery

However, it’s not all doom and gloom as the Great Barrier Reef appeared to show signs of recovery that experts have referred to as ‘giving birth’. The event was recorded by scientists on November 23^rd off the coast of Cairns, Australia when the coral began ‘birthing’ billions of offspring into the Pacific Ocean. The coral erupted over the course of two or three days with flashings of colour and activity. Although this event is historically a natural yearly occurrence, it hasn’t been seen as much in the last decade because of extreme coral bleaching. Therefore, the sighting shows signs of hope for the future. The Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network explained that corals can recover globally within a decade, if in that time they’re given reprieve from hot waters. Some reefs — particularly the Coral Triangle in East Asia, which hosts nearly a third of global corals, are showing a reverse trend and experiencing coral growth, which alludes to signs that corals could be adapting to warmer conditions. Meanwhile, research is continuing to come up with creative ways to improve coral restoration, from selectively breeding super corals to spreading probiotics on reefs that are weak.

Risk-adverse Investors

Research is also helping to target investment in conservation projects that have the strongest potential to succeed, by using the same theory used to help risk-adverse investors maximise their returns. It’s called Modern Portfolio Theory and it’s a mathematical framework that was Nobel Prize winning in the 1950’s but today is helping to identify the reefs around the world that are most likely to survive the climate crisis. It’s a strategy that helps make decisions on where best to invest our time and energy. If we can save the strongest reefs, these will then be able to re populate other reefs, if threats are then absent.

Signs that the reef is still responding after the tragedies it has recently gone through, gives us hope that we can reverse the effects of climate change on our planet. However, as this article has shown, every reef is different and requires a different strategy to save it. Conservationists and researchers face tough decisions about where to focus our attention and funds. When the IPCC declared in 2018 that 99% of corals would be lost in a 2-degree warmer world, that was really shocking for all. The goal is to reduce that down to at least 90% so that our strongest reefs have a chance to bounce back from devastation and repopulate where they once were.