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Long presumed dead, a thriving coral reef is discovered in West Africa

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Re: Long presumed dead, a thriving coral reef is discovered in West Africa

#61

Post by pests »

soperj wrote: post #55
Jtsummers wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billion_Oyster_Project - Different effort, this one is about putting out living oysters, not just shells as GP was talking about. And to be clear, in GP's link, living oysters do show up, but they weren't put there deliberately (the shells and every other development provided the larvae with places to grow and establish themselves). The NY project started with oyster larvae placed on dis…

did this start as just shells? Because I remember reading something a long time ago about this and they were just putting shells in the bay in metal cages. Amazing that they're actually progressing on a billion oysters. That's incredible. I wonder when it becomes self sustaining, and just reaches a billion on it's own.

> As part of the strategy, discarded oyster shells from over 70 New York restaurants are collected and left outside for a year to be naturally cleansed of organic matter. Baby oysters are then placed on the shells by students at New York Harbor School, a maritime-focused public high school located on Governors Island. [10]

Re: Long presumed dead, a thriving coral reef is discovered in West Africa

#62

Post by nothercastle »

bix6 wrote: post #40
phkahler wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recall reading that the corals can reproduce both sexually and by cloning, with most in nature using cloning. The researchers brought them back to a lab and bred a bunch of them and found a lot of offspring could thrive in the warmer more acidic water, so they wanted to reintroduce them to a reef (or maybe they had). Been a while but it was interesting. Not sure what it takes to shift away from cloning in nature, b…

One major issue though is diversity. Many coral gardeners use fragments to clone one type over and over.

Also pests aquariums have some of the toughest pests imaginable

Re: Long presumed dead, a thriving coral reef is discovered in West Africa

#64

Post by Geezus_42 »

tjwebbnorfolk wrote: post #60
bluebarbet wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The irony surely being that the "economic value" here supposedly worth $10T is, ultimately, the very cause of their undoing (human economic activity is somewhat directly correlated with environmental destruction). Personally I'd prefer to live in a world where we saved coral reefs for their own sake and not for their economic value. Still, it's a detail. Well done for the amazing work you're doing. We all depend on p…

You'd prefer to live in a world where labor is free and we don't need to work for anything? I like the current world better.

No, we'd prefer a world in which we don't destroy the environment for the sole purpose of creating more unneeded and largely useless widgets.

Re: Long presumed dead, a thriving coral reef is discovered in West Africa

#65

Post by ars »

functionmouse wrote: post #57
ars wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the point in it existing then? Just for a couple of the chosen few? I'm aware that lots of people can be destructive, but there's a balance.

For its own sake, not ours.

Beauty does not exist for its own sake, it only exists in the mind of someone else.

Re: Long presumed dead, a thriving coral reef is discovered in West Africa

#66

Post by parineum »

bamboozled wrote: post #47
Aboutplants wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve always been curious as to the level of success these programs achieve compared to just letting nature respond on its own. There are many cases where “dead” areas come back to life with abundance and give me pause as to whether we should for the most part just get out of natures way.

Homeostasis, that was probably an option for most of nature in the 1950s or something, I think the damage is too great to just leave the reefs, forrests and other habitats to "fend for themselves". Even if what you say is true from an environmental perspective, we also have to fight to protect these areas from exploitation from fisherman, mining etc.

Homeostasis is unnatural.

Re: Long presumed dead, a thriving coral reef is discovered in West Africa

#67

Post by parineum »

nothinggoesaway wrote: post #18

Chemical sunscreen famously kills coral. Some dermatologists have noted that sunscreen is little used in Africa. [1] I’m not saying that is the only explanation for the reef’s preservation, but it’s likely a significant contributing factor. [1] https://theconversation.com/sunscreen-wouldnt-have-saved-bob...

The evidence for sunscreen killing coral is pretty thin and the evidence that so-called mineral sunscreen _not_ killing coral is non-existent.

Re: Long presumed dead, a thriving coral reef is discovered in West Africa

#68

Post by frollogaston »

parineum wrote: post #67
nothinggoesaway wrote: post #18

Chemical sunscreen famously kills coral. Some dermatologists have noted that sunscreen is little used in Africa. [1] I’m not saying that is the only explanation for the reef’s preservation, but it’s likely a significant contributing factor. [1] https://theconversation.com/sunscreen-wouldnt-have-saved-bob...

The evidence for sunscreen killing coral is pretty thin and the evidence that so-called mineral sunscreen _not_ killing coral is non-existent.

The mineral sunscreen comes off way more easily in water. For that reason, so did a few layers of my skin in the Bahamas.

Re: Long presumed dead, a thriving coral reef is discovered in West Africa

#69

Post by randerson »

soperj wrote: post #13
ck2 wrote: post #11

vaguely related I read a fascinating story the other day about basically garbage dumping of leftover oyster/clam shells being used to re-seed a marine ecosystem off the Florida Keys * https://www.yahoo.com/news/science/articles/florida-dumped-h...

they were doing that in New York as well if I'm not mistaken

NYC even dumps their old subway cars to create coral reefs:

https://www.businessinsider.com/new-york-subway-cars-turning...

Re: Long presumed dead, a thriving coral reef is discovered in West Africa

#70

Post by bix6 »

bluebarbet wrote: post #51
bix6 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work with Hybrid Reefs out of Scripps in San Diego. Daniel is an amazing dude, Moore fellow, and prolific inventor. If you can help, there’s contact info on the website. https://www.hybridreefs.com/ Coral Vita is the trailblazer in the for profit category, first coral Series A (2025). I don’t know them yet though. https://www.coralvita.co https://coral.org is a 501c3. One of my friends is on the board. Other fun st…

The irony surely being that the "economic value" here supposedly worth $10T is, ultimately, the very cause of their undoing (human economic activity is somewhat directly correlated with environmental destruction). Personally I'd prefer to live in a world where we saved coral reefs for their own sake and not for their economic value. Still, it's a detail. Well done for the amazing work you're doing. We all depend on p…

I’m with you re saving them. It’s always been crazy to me how much capitalism undervalues the irreplaceable things that make this world so special.

I appreciate it. It’s an uphill battle but it’s worth it.

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