The Coral Gardeners of The Islands of Tahiti
The Coral Gardeners is a group of young ocean lovers based on the French Polynesian island of Moorea who could see the damage done to the reefs in the waters they call home and decided to something about it. The founder Titouan and his team of surfers, free divers, and fishermen are actively working to restore the corals through a program of regeneration.
Researchers have estimated that if we don’t do anything about it, there will be no more corals on Earth by 2050 and if nothing is done, it will be the first ecosystem on Earth to entirely collapse, dragging with it the loss of 25% of marine life that rely on them.
The world’s coral reefs produce 50% of the Earth’s oxygen and 500 million people worldwide directly rely on the reef for food, income, coastal protection and more. With this tight deadline, the Coral Gardeners have taken it upon themselves to be real heroes and are really amping up their work in the next few years.
The company is celebrating their 4th anniversary this year and have during these years planted 15,000 corals in The Islands of Tahiti. They recently announced their goal to expand beyond Tahiti’s reefs and to plant 1 million (!) corals worldwide by 2025.
They have also introduced a new type of coral they use for their nurseries, called super corals that are more resilient and have proven to resist and survive hot water temperatures and bleaching events. Amidst these extreme conditions, these resilient corals are still thriving and should hypothetically spawn.
In the images below you can see the results on how their coral adoption program has improved the reefs in the past years (see examples below), showing what a massive difference their work can do to save the reefs.
Adopting a super coral cost approx $60 (€39) and can be purchased through the Coral Gardeners Website.
Photo Credit: Ryan Borne
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