Saving the World's Coral Reefs

Over the past three years, CORAL has been privileged to work with world-class researchers from academic institutions and conservation organizations as part of the Reefs Tomorrow Initiative (RTI). Launched in 2012 with a grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, RTI’s goal was to understand how multiple factors—for example, wave energy, herbivores, and the distribution of coral species on a reef—interact to affect the health of a coral reef. In conjunction with our scientific research, we worked with coral reef managers around the world to understand how they use science to inform their management decisions.

We based our scientific research on the remote atoll of Palmyra in the central Pacific. Armed with cameras, clipboards, settlement tiles, temperature data loggers and more, we collected a truly staggering amount of biological, physical, and ecological data. Simultaneously, we worked with communities around the world—including partners in Fiji, the Solomon Islands, and Palau—to make sure that our scientific work was relevant to conservation and management challenges.

Armed with cameras, clipboards, settlement tiles and more, we collected a truly staggering amount of data. Photo by Brian Zgliczynski

Now that we have completed RTI, I wanted to share some of our key findings:

• In areas not impacted by humans, there are rules that dictate how reef-building corals are distributed on a reef—that is, there’s a certain amount of determinism to who lives where. In more degraded systems, these rules tend to break down. Using mathematical models and data from Palmyra, we are exploring what this means for reef resilience and management.
• The resilience of ecosystems cannot be decoupled from the resilience of human communities. For example, for communities to be resilient to storms, their ecosystems must be resilient as well. Knowing this, we have been able to improve the way we share scientific information with natural resource managers.
• Not all herbivores are created equal. Through RTI’s work, we are learning that the effects that herbivores can have on a reef depend on their behavior, size, home ranges, and where they feed. This information will help us better manage herbivores on reefs.
• Coral reefs protect shorelines by absorbing wave energy. Through work at Palmyra, we discovered that healthy reefs can dissipate significantly more wave energy than more degraded reefs. This suggests there may be a feedback loop whereby degradation of a reef’s physical complexity results in the reef experiencing greater wave energy, which in turns leads to further degradation of the reef.

Through RTI’s work, we are learning that the effects that herbivores can have on a reef. Photo by Katie Davis

We have combined these and other findings into a mathematical model that allows us to explore how climate change might affect reef health by increasing the frequency and intensity of disturbance events. If we know how healthy reefs, like those at Palmyra, can withstand change and recover from disturbance, we may be able to unlock the key to this resilience for other reefs around the globe.

For communities to be resilient to storms, their ecosystems must be resilient as well.

While funding for RTI has ended, our collaborative work will continue for years to come as we build on what we have learned from Palmyra and our work with communities around the world.

Members of RTI include American Museum of Natural History, Coral Reef Alliance, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Stanford University, University of California – Santa Barbara, University of North Carolina – Wilmington, Victoria University of Wellington. More at www.reefstomorrowinitiative.org.

As a Hawaiian, I have a deep connection to the both the land and the sea. This stems not only from my personal love of nature but from my belief that all life is interrelated, a belief that drives my work with the Coral Reef Alliance. I learned this early through the Kumulipo, the Hawaiian creation chant that explains how life began, our shared genealogy. The ancient chant is more than two thousand lines, practiced, learned and shared over generations. The Kumulipo begins with cosmic darkness.

O ke au i kahuli lole ka lani
At the time when the heavens turned about

O ke au i kuka‘iaka ka la
At the time when the sun was darkened

E ho‘omalamalama i ka malama
To cause the moon to shine

O ke au o Makali‘i ka po
The time of the rise of the Pleiades

O ka walewale ho‘okumu honua ia
The slime, this was the source of the earth

O ke kumu o ka lipo, i lipo ai
The source of the darkness that made darkness

O ke kumu o ka Po, i po ai
The source of the night that made night

O ka lipolipo, o ka lipolipo
The intense darkness, the deep darkness

O ka lipo o ka la, o ka lipo o ka po
Darkness of the sun, darkness of the night

Po wale ho–‘i
Nothing but night

Hanau ka po
The night gave birth

Hanau Kumulipo i ka po, he kane
Born was Kumulipo in the night, a male

Hanau Po‘ele i ka po, he wahine
Born was Po‘ele in the night, a female

Hanau ka ‘Uku-ko‘ako‘a, hanau kana, he ‘Ako‘ako‘a, puka
Born was the coral polyp, born was the coral, came forth

The Kumulipo tells us that the Ko’a, or coral polyp, was the first organism created. The Ko’a was followed by seastars, cucumbers, and urchins, each increasing in complexity. Early translators of the chant noted that the order of species closely matches the biological groupings we use today.

(Line 18) Hanau ka Pe‘a, ka Pe‘ape‘a kana keiki puka
Born was the starfish, his child the small starfish came forth

 (Line 19) Hanau ka Weli, he Weliweli kana keiki, puka
Born was the sea cucumber, his child the small sea cucumber came forth

(Line 20) Hanau ka ‘Ina, ka ‘Ina
Born was the sea urchin, the sea urchin [tribe]

The chant teaches us that life in the sea and life on land are inexorably connected, and what we do on land has a direct connection and impact on all organisms in the sea. Hawaiians recognize that these organisms are the building blocks for all life on this shared planet we call Honua. There is a resurgence of interest in the chant as people look for the traditional knowledge of ecological connections. The Kumulipo is always in the background of people’s minds.

(Line 35) Hanau ka ‘Aki‘aki noho i kai
Born was the tough seagrass living in the sea

 (Line 36) Kia‘i ia e ka Manienie-‘aki‘aki noho i uka
Guarded by the tough landgrass living on land

It is our Kuleana (responsibility) to preserve and protect all living organisms because we all come from the same primordial beginnings– ­from the night, from the slime, from the coral polyp. These lessons of the Kumulipo are deeply integrated into our consciousness. It’s something we feel in our na’au (deep within our being). We are all related, part of one ohana (family), and it is our responsibility to care for the land under our feet, the sea around us, and our coral reefs.

You can read the entire chant with translation by Martha Warren Beckwith here.