Conservation Corner

Coral Gardeners in 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, freedivers and fishermen are actively working to restore the corals through a programme 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 percent of marine life that rely on them.

The world’s coral reefs produce 50 percent 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 fourth anniversary this year and have during these years planted 15,000 corals in The Islands of Tahiti. They recently announced

© Ryan Borne

their goal to expand beyond Tahiti’s reefs and to plant one 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. You can see the results on how their coral adoption programme has improved the reefs in the past years from the photographs, 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 their website: www.coralgardeners.org