Corals are the backbone of ocean life, providing vibrant homes for fish we eat and natural protection for our coasts
But corals worldwide are suffering from warming seas. In Hawaiʻi, up to 90% of some reefs bleached in 2015 as waters heated up.
"These aren't little corals dying; these are really big, the size of Volkswagens, that have died," Greg Asner, the director of a new project to restore Hawaiʻi's reefs, told Mongabay. "It's brutal to see, it's visually arresting."
Coral bleaching has been a serious problem across the world. However, there's fresh hope for reefs and the communities that depend on them.
Asner's project, called ʻĀkoʻakoʻa — which means "bringing people and coral together" — has launched to restore a 120-mile reef stretch along Hawaiʻi Island's west coast. It is one of the first attempts at large-scale coral restoration, according to Mongabay.
The team will identify the hardiest heat-resistant corals, breed them in special nursery tanks, and return millions of their offspring to damaged reefs during natural spawning events. Some corals will also be raised to maturity and transplanted.
Working with local organizations, they'll also reduce other reef stressors like sediment pollution and overfishing.
ʻĀkoʻakoʻa is built on Native Hawaiian values of environmental stewardship to sustain healthy oceans for generations to come. With $25 million in funding pledged over five years, the project is housed in state-of-the-art coral nurseries capable of producing a million baby corals per tank each year.
The project could facilitate reef restoration for the 500 million people worldwide who depend on reefs for food and their livelihoods. Asner, who's hard at work using his platform for good, told Mongabay: "If we can't make this work here, over the next five to 10 years, I don't know what other answers there are."
Cindi Punihaole, a Native Hawaiian advisor, sees ʻĀkoʻakoʻa as community-driven resilience in action. "One hundred years from now, we want a child to say, 'Mahalo, kupuna [thank you, ancestors], wherever you are, for thinking of us,' because they will see that our oceans are still there for them," she told Mongabay.
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