It's often said that reefs are the rain forests of the ocean — they cover less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the world's surface area, yet a quarter of all marine life exists in these ecosystems. But we're losing reefs four times faster than we're losing rain forests.
All the coral reefs in the world combined cover about 250,000 square kilometers — an area about the size of Michigan. But 75 percent of reefs are now threatened. There are the usual culprits — coastal development, climate change, diseases, and ocean acidification — and, in developing countries, additional destruction from fishermen who kill their catch by blasting the water with dynamite or cyanide. Reefs generate about $375 billion annually through tourism, fishing, and recreation. In South Florida alone, reefs are said to bring in more than $4 billion a year. They also provide natural protection against hurricanes, flooding, and tsunamis.
Chris Sweeney
George Melissas, CEO of Shell Horizons, comes from a long line of sponge-diving Greeks.
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One need only stroll around South Florida to see how people undervalue coral by treating it as a decoration. The lobby of the Ritz-Carlton in Manalapan is adorned with intricate, bright-white, branching colonies, including one piece that's a display stand for a pair of cheap, pink flip-flops. A little farther north, at the Ralph Lauren boutique in West Palm Beach, a handful of pieces fills a decorative fireplace. Down in Dania Beach, dozens of coral skeletons line the windows of Alex's Gift Shop, a few with price tags tipping the $4,000 mark. Over in the display case are coral necklaces, earrings, and bracelets.
Baker points out an absurdity: There's no real connection between Florida waters and the coral for sale in stores.
"I can understand the appeal of curio and shell stores," he says. "People come down here and they want to take something away to remind them of their holidays. [But ] virtually everything for sale in those stores comes from Southeast Asia. They have absolutely nothing to do with Florida, the Florida Keys, or anything even remotely local. Ninety-nine percent of coral in the curio stores is from Southeast Asia. As a souvenir, it's illogical."
Why isn't Florida coral for sale? Because the species in our waters are protected, and two of the most important ones — staghorn coral and elkhorn coral — were placed on the Endangered Species List in 2006. They're now afforded the same amount of protection as an African elephant or a bald eagle. This designation, as well as the recent addition of more species as candidates for protection, was spurred by a more than 85 percent decline in coral cover on Florida's reefs since the '70s, mostly due to pollution and disease.
Bleaching is another problem. When water gets too warm, coral essentially vomit out the colorful zooxanthellae living in their tissue. The white skeleton becomes visible underneath. Sometimes reefs recover from bleaching; sometimes they don't. In 1997-98, a single bleaching event wiped out one-sixth of the world's shallow-water corals, mostly in the western Indian Ocean, Baker says.
An optimist might say there's an upside to coral's sad plight: It has spurred an entire body of research aimed at replenishing the reefs. Under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, $15 million was handed out to coral restoration projects, including one aimed at restoring "136 Olympic-size swimming pools" worth of coral in the Florida Keys and Virgin Islands.
One of the world's most impressive coral nurseries, situated about 30 minutes off the coast of Key Largo, is part of that project. Rows of seven-foot-tall PVC poles are secured to the ocean floor and submerged in about 30 feet of water. Each pole is equipped with several long fiberglass crossbars, and tied to each crossbar are slivers of coral that sway gently in the limpid sea. From a snorkeler's perspective, it looks like a vast underwater farm of hot dogs dangling from 1980s television antennas.
The mastermind behind this underwater coral farm is Ken Nedimyer: part conservationist, part aquarist, part amateur scientist. He runs a small nonprofit organization called the Coral Restoration Foundation. Over the past ten years, he has developed arguably the most effective and simple method for growing reef-building coral: He ties a fragment to one of the crossbars and just lets it be. A specimen that starts out at three centimeters, or roughly the size of a pinkie finger, will grow into a healthy branching coral that measures 75 centimeters in a year. When large enough, these specimens are taken out of the nursery and transplanted onto select natural reefs.
Whereas many of his peers in the coral-research world come from academia, Nedimyer's business background sets him apart. Before he made a full-time gig out of growing coral to put back on the reef, he sold exotic fish and saltwater live rock for the aquarium trade.
"I was seeing reefs die for sure in the mid-'80s," he says. "By '98, they were just decimated." Now, he says, "I'm looking at how can we go full-on, 100 miles per hour forward, and industrialize this idea so it's massively successful. In the end, the scientists are going to have some really nice papers and interesting findings coming out. And I'm going to have put 100,000 corals back on the reef."
