[HN Gopher] Indonesia coral reef partially restored in extensive...
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Indonesia coral reef partially restored in extensive project
Author : orblivion
Score : 60 points
Date : 2021-05-05 20:52 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.forbes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.forbes.com)
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| Not a lot of details here other than the "reef stars" which
| provide a substrate for new coral growth. But what led to the
| coral death in the first place? Probably warmer water - not sure
| how this helps with that unless they're attaching species that
| can do well in warmer water (such as corals from the red sea, for
| example). There could have been other issues that led to coral
| death in that area such as an overabundance of nitrogen and
| phosphates from fertilizer runoff - unless that's addressed it's
| going to keep happening.
| Alex3917 wrote:
| > But what led to the coral death in the first place? Probably
| warmer water
|
| Building resorts near the water isn't compatible with having
| living reefs. Not to mention that not only does Indonesia not
| ban reef-toxic sunscreen, stores don't even sell reef-safe
| sunscreen.
| sphericalgames wrote:
| Dynamite fishing is the number 1 cause of coral reef
| destruction in Indonesia. Search for "blast fishing in
| Indonesia" - there are plenty of youtube videos of the
| devastation this causes. They now have protected areas that
| have zero tolerance to blast fishing with regular patrols and
| long sentences if caught. Such protected areas are thriving in
| coral.
| freeflight wrote:
| To add to your list of possible causes: Ocean acidification [0]
|
| [0]
| https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/22324/20190610/ocean-a...
| jhauris wrote:
| DDG returned a forbes article which has much more information
| about the project[1]. Maybe my search prowess isn't very good,
| but that's the best I could find (it presents the information
| much more easily than the Sheba project page).
|
| The reef stars are seeded with reef fragments, which can be
| easily grown in tanks. They say that they are using 42 "types" of
| coral. These frags will likely grow really quickly, and fill the
| area with coral. It's really great to see so much money and
| effort that uses local resources to help restore the reefs. This
| will could really help kickstart reef restoration in the areas.
|
| I wish I could find more detailed information on the project; if
| the 42 "types" are from 42 unique source corals, and they are of
| different species, it seems like a limited improvement. Corals
| can't reproduce with their own clones. If it is the case it's
| from 42 sources, then while this will definitely help restore the
| environment in the short term, it may be of limited long-term
| help, particularly if the sources of destruction are not
| addressed.
|
| 1: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johannaread/2021/05/05/the-
| sheb...
| dang wrote:
| Ok, we've changed the URL to that from
| https://www.bbc.com/news/av/science-environment-56985594 above.
| Thanks!
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| I recently watched a new Nova episode about scientists trying
| to find and/or breed and deploy heat-resistant coral to
| maintain certain imperiled ecosystems. It's really interesting
| and relevant to anyone who is interested in this sort of thing.
| orblivion wrote:
| I keep seeing stories about reef disappearing on here so I
| thought this would be good to see as well.
| pstuart wrote:
| Just enough hope to not give up, yet not so much as to let off
| pressure to fix things.
| chris_overseas wrote:
| There's also this article about coral reef restoration in Belize
| that also sounds like some rare good news for corals:
| https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210430-the-woman-who-re...
| It's interesting to see how they've learned to grow the coral
| quicker and more effectively.
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(page generated 2021-05-05 23:00 UTC)