“While we still have reefs, we still have hope.”
Reefs around the globe are in a pitiable state — one estimate predicts 90% will be dead by 2050 — but “while we still have reefs,” writes journalist Gaia Vince in a new Guardian feature, “we still have hope.” Scientists are preserving and protecting what’s left of these delicate and dwindling ecosystems using techniques including 3D printing and “coral gardening,” a promising method for transplanting healthy corals into damaged parts of reefs.
Many of these efforts to rebuild reefs are also taking into account the well-being of humans who depend on reefs to survive. Vince writes:
Just because we don’t see them doesn’t mean we won’t miss them. For, as we are belatedly discovering, the nice, dry human world that we’ve made for ourselves is dependent on the planet’s natural systems and coral reefs are no exception. They protect our coastlands from erosion, they are the nurseries for the fish we eat and they harbour the plankton that produce the oxygen we breathe. Globally, coral reefs support a quarter of all marine life and the livelihoods of a billion people…
With the future of the world’s ecological and human systems now so deeply interconnected, a new movement in reef conservation is putting social systems at its heart and explicitly building resilience into human and ecological systems in tandem. In other words, protecting nature means protecting people.
Read more below.
