NOAA unveils plan to save coral reefs

KEY LARGO — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, along with seven partners, unveiled a $97 million plan Monday to restore coral on seven reefs in the Florida Keys.

The hope is to eventually restore 3 million square feet of coral reefs, or roughly the size of 52 football fields.

The NOAA plan, carried out in three phases over 15 years, would increase coral coverage on those seven reefs from the current 2 percent to what is hoped to be 25 percent by 2035.

Historically, Florida Keys’ healthy reefs had about 30 to 40 percent coverage.

But a variety of stressors ranging from ocean acidification and global warming that causes coral bleaching to a virulent disease now known as stony coral tissue loss disease has devastated the Florida Reef Tract.

The only barrier reef ecosystem in the continental United States, the Florida Reef Tract has lost 90 percent of its mass in the last 50 years.

“For me, today is all about hope,” Sarah Fangman, superintendent of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, said during the unveiling, which was hosted at the Murray Nelson Government Center in Key Largo, but webcast worldwide, through Monroe County Television.

“These are America’s iconic reefs; we must protect them and we must rebuild them,” she later added.

The temperature and storm stressors are not going away, she said. So the strategy is based on the scientists using genetically diverse corals that have proven to be resilient to those factors to repopulate the reefs.

“We cannot wait to solve those problems before we start,” Fangman said, referring to water quality issues that partly originate from the Florida mainland. “My hope is that, as we invest and demonstrate that progress can be made, that is leverage — that is what we bring into the conversation that we haven’t had before; ‘look, we are turning this around, you have to turn off the pollution that’s coming into this system.’”

The seven reefs include the Carysfort Reef Complex and Horseshoe Reef in the upper keys; Cheeca Rocks and Sombrero Key in the middle keys; and Looe Key, Newfound Harbor Patches and Eastern Dry Docks in the lower keys.

Tourist draw

The Florida Reef Tract is worth at least $6 billion annually to Florida’s economy; it provides more than 70,000 jobs and is home to 25 percent of marine life.

The sites were chosen in part because they represent what was once considered the best of the Florida Keys and because of high name recognition would also demonstrate the impact restoration would have on the local economy.

“You could be a random diver from Kansas or Nebraska and you came to the Florida Keys 20 years ago, there’s a decent chance you were on one of these sites,” said Tom Moore, manager of the NOAA Coral Reef Restoration Program, who added that the sites near Key West are those that cruise ship passengers visit on snorkel excursions.

Jessica Levy, science and education director at the Coral Restoration Foundation, was quick to point out that one that still must be overcome is the hesitancy to admit that there’s a problem with a major driver of the Keys’ tourism-driven economy.

She noted that after Hurricane Irma, the immediate message was that the reefs were fine — even though they weren’t.

“We have to be OK with saying the reefs aren’t what they were; we’ve had a lot of loss.” Levy said. “Once you admit that there’s a problem, there’s a solution in place to start addressing those problems.”

The visibility of those sites are key to creating buzz to help foster private and nonprofit fundraising efforts to help pay the $97 million tab for Phase 1.

Project partners include two local familiar faces, Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium and The Florida Aquarium, as well as the Coral Restoration Foundation, Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission’s Fish and Wildlife Research Institute, Reef Renewal and The Nature Conservancy.

Mote Marine, which operates the Elizabeth Moore International Center for Coral Reef Research and Restoration on Summerland Key, pioneered the technique of micro-fragmentation, a process that capitalizes on the natural healing process and allows corals to grow 25 times faster than normal.

The Florida Aquarium maintains a coral nursery at its Center for Conservation in Apollo Beach, where it also hosts a gene bank of pillar coral it hopes to one day return to the reefs.

Aquarium biologists also use techniques developed at the Horniman Museum and Gardens, located in Forest Hill England, southeast of London to induce coral spawning outside of its natural cycle.

Levy noted that the Coral Restoration Foundation is already outplanting coral on six of those seven reefs, while Allison Delashmit, communications manager for the Mote facility on Summerland Key, said they are working on three of those reefs.

Though not part of the seven iconic sites, Mote is working on a site Near Looe Key that is funded out of a partnership between Mote and Enzymedica, a Venice-based digestive health and wellness company that has committed to donating as much as $250,000 a year, based sales of is Aqua-Biome fish oil product.

The phased plan builds on the restoration efforts currently ongoing in the keys.

Nuisance algae, which retain sediment and choke off potential coral growth, are cleared from a site, then in addition to coral, species that graze on algae, such as sea long-spined sea urchins and Caribbean king crabs, will be reintroduced to the sites as well.

As part of the partnership, the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences and the Florida Aquarium will spawn and breed the long-spined urchins.

Phase 1a will include outplanting of fast-growing elkhorn corals, which can reach reproductive maturity within three to five years. Elkhorn coral is also not susceptible to stony coral tissue loss disease.

Phase 1b, which will take a year or two to ramp up, is designed to increase the diversity of the reefs, with star, brain, pillar and staghorn corals planted, as well as the introduction of the urchins and crabs.

In addition, divers affiliated with the program partners — along with volunteers — will also need to maintain the areas.

“You don’t just walk away from it, you take care of it as it grows,” Moore said.

The goal is to have about 10 percent of coral cover restored by 2025 and 15 percent by 2028.

Cost estimates for Phase 2 haven’t yet been set.

Phase 2, which focuses on slower-growing boulder corals, would occur between 2025 and 2035 and increase both the diversity of the reefs and the coral coverage to 25 percent, which is considered key to support a healthy ecosystem and reef structure.

Some federal funding has already started flowing toward the effort, noted NOAA Research Coordinator Andy Bruckner, who pointed to about $6 million in federal funding that went to both NOAA and Mote.

But to grow beyond that, he said, the scientists had to come up with the strategy to reverse the degradation of the reefs.

“Unless we articulated a plan, it was going to be hard to raise the capital to do this,” Bruckner said. “This is telling people what we need; the next step is going to be raising the resources to do that as well.”

Levy added that in addition to that, the plan gives the individual nonprofits a rallying point for more grassroots fundraising.

“It’s these combined actions that’s going to push us forward,” she said. “If we work together, it’s completely achievable.”