Corals for Climate: Restoring Resilient Reefs

Since the start of the program, we have hired 2 fishermen to serve as coral gardeners. These fishermen have been working on restoring staghorn coral populations along the Punta Cana coral reef.

In August 2018, the foundation hired a fisherman to serve as a boat captain for the coral gardeners. This fisherman was hired because of his Pleasure Craft Operational Certification that he obtained through the Dominican Navy, which allows them to handle vessels of up to 46’ in length. This training was made possible by generous donations like yours.

One more fisherman is schedule to start working as a coral gardener during the first week of October, completing the team of coral gardeners proposed in this project.

In April, when the fishermen started work, they were able to transplant 112 linear meters of staghorn coral back onto natural reefs. To date, the two fishermen working have transplanted over 734 meters of coral tissue using coral fragments from the foundations staghorn in-water coral nursery. Every transplant site contains at least 3 different genetic material ensuring that the corals have all they need to promote a natural reproduction.

The foundation, continues to explore ways in which it can facilitate transplantation efforts. As a result, the foundation is building a new 22ft boat to help the fishermen increase their restoration efforts.

We hope to achieve 1,000 meters of linear tissue transplanted back onto the local reefs by the end of November 2018!

We're really exctied to share that two fishermen have been already hired to be part of a coral planting team and one more fisherman was interviewed for possible hiring. The fishermen have been gardening and planting corals over the last two months.

An estimated total of 330 meters of tissue have been sown, distributed in approximately 429 fragments of coral. We're in the process of buying a 26 foot boat and a 60 HP engine, to help with the fishermen transportation and and improve the monitoring of the already planted corals and future gardering works. 

We're very happy about how this project is doing and very optimistic about the upcoming results. Here are some great pictures of our recent efforts. Let's keep saving Corals!