Coral Reef Restoration

While on a fellowship through The Nature Conservancy working at their St. Croix hub in the US Virgin islands I assissted in large scale coral restoration projects throught the islands. The US Virgin Islands was one of the first areas of the Caribbean where the Conservancy began its coral restoration work, and is now one of the largest coral restoration initiataives in the world. Increase ocean temperatures and acididty, overfishing and pollution have had severe impacts on reefs through the Caribbean. Populations of elkhorn corals, a key reef-building species, in parts of the Virgin Islands have decreased by 90 percent since the 1980s. The Conservancy now runs a transformative coral conservation initiative combining cutting edge science and ecosystem-based solutions to rebuild reefs at scales never before possible with long-term marine protections. Through microfragmentation and facilitated sexual reproduction, we can grow large numbers of new corals faster and with greater survival rates. While working with TNC throughout 2014 I helped build and maintain underwater coral reef nurseries of endangered Elkorn and Staghorn coral. Throughout the year we expanded local nurseries from 4000 to 10000 specimens and outplanted roughly 3000 specimens to degraded reefs. As part of my position with TNC, I also assisted in ship grounding assessments over coral reefs and restoration of damaged reefs. In order to quantify health of outplanted reef locations extensive AGRRA (Atlantic and Gulf Rapid Reef Assessment) surveys were conducted underwater. This position includled extensive SCUBA and small boat operations.