Exploring Restoration as a Service
Growing super corals.
This article is inspired by Freethink’s series: Challengers, the episode “Hacking evolution to grow super coral”.
A small group of scientists is growing corals 50 times faster and more resilient than in the wild. Why?
Significance of coral reefs
Coral Reefs are one ecosystem that takes up only 1% of the seafloor yet sustains the livelihoods of up to one billion people and 25% of marine life.
To elaborate on their significance, they help protect coastlines from storms and erosion, provide jobs for local communities, and have been a source of new opportunities, including food and medicines. The net economic value for these reefs is estimated to be nearly tens of billions annually. (UNEP, 2018). Local businesses also depend on the reefs for recreation, fishing, diving, and snorkeling. These ecosystems are also culturally important to indigenous people around the world.
Threats to coral reefs
Unfortunately, coral reef ecosystems are severely threatened. As our planet gets warmer due to climate change, our oceans inevitably get warmer too. A warming ocean results in higher acidity which stresses the vulnerable coral reef ecosystem leading to coral bleaching and possible death. During the 2014–2017 coral bleaching event, unusually warm waters (partially associated with a strong El Niño) affected 70% of coral reef ecosystems worldwide.
Although corals have a natural ability to adapt to changing conditions, things are deteriorating in the ocean so quickly that they can’t keep up. Corals can recover from bleaching events if conditions improve before they die, though it can take many years for the ecosystems to fully heal.
Coral Vita
Located in Grand Bahama, Coral Vita is the world’s first commercial land-based coral farm for reef restoration.
Unlike traditional coral planting projects, they grow their corals on land. This is done for a few key reasons. Land-based corals allow them to grow more diverse and resilient corals more affordably and at scale.
On land, they attempt to acclimatise the corals by raising and lowering the temperature of the water by getting the corals to undergo stress. Think about it like taking the corals to the gym. This in turn hardens them which boosts their resilience and their ability to survive the planet’s warming oceans.
Resilient coral babies and their mystifying traits
Coral spawning is the corals’ ability to make babies. During this process, Coral Vita puts those already more resilient corals together so that their babies are also going to be more resilient. This process is called assisted evolution.
Coral Vita is also said to be able to speed up a coral’s growth rate. The method they rely on to accelerate coral growth rates is known as ‘micro-fragmenting’ which is an open-source method that allows them to grow corals up to 50 times faster.
Corals have a natural healing process, if you take one individual coral and you cut them into tiny fragments, and you put those micro fragments close to each other, they will start fusing back into themselves. And eventually, you have larger corals from very important species that often are not grown in traditional projects. The growth of these corals in some cases can take months instead of decades.
Throughout 6, 12, and 24 months, the corals grow in their raceway tanks before they are outplanted into the reefs.
Climate change capitalism
Most restoration projects are nonprofits supported by grants and donations. However, the team at Coral Vita is taking a different approach. They are a for-profit company selling restoration as a service to paying customers like hotels, governments, and coastal property owners.
Is there a demand for reef restoration?
This is probably something you might be wondering about. One of Coral Vita’s next-door neighbours is a hotel and most of its guests stay there due to its amazing snorkeling and scuba diving experience. They are probably not going to stay in this hotel or any hotel if the reef is dead. So it’s in the business interest of all of these different resorts and property owners to protect and restore these ecosystems because is a way they can attract more guests.
Insurers and coastal property owners who are protected by breakwaters that reefs provide, national governments, corporate sponsors, and international development agencies; anyone who depends on or cares about reefs can hire Coral Vita to restore them.
A restoration economy
The “restoration economy” refers to economic growth that’s based on repurposing, renewing, and reconnecting the natural, built, and socioeconomic environments.
Coral restoration is not a silver bullet, and this will not stop the effects of climate change. However, restorative systems like these can mitigate the damage to our reefs as ocean temperatures continue to rise.
Coral Vita’s ultimate goal is to help kickstart a restoration economy, where many different restoration companies are paid to protect the ecosystems we rely on, which in turn creates high-skilled, local jobs.
“It’s okay to be angry and to want to give in to fatalism, but people should still have reasons for hope. We can fix problems. we can’t do this alone. We need material scientists, and engineers, we need technologists. There is a real opportunity to make a difference.” — Sam Teicher, Chief Reef Officer of Coral Vita
