Speaker 1: Bushkin. This is solvable. I'm Jacob Weisberg. So it kind
Speaker 1: of looks like a pepperoni pizza. It's about that size,
Speaker 1: and you imagine the pepperoni's at the little corals there.
Speaker 1: Around the world, coral reefs are rapidly being destroyed by
Speaker 1: a combination of overfishing, local pollutants, and rising sea temperatures
Speaker 1: due to climate change. When you consider that nearly twenty
Speaker 1: five percent of all fish spend at least part of
Speaker 1: their lifetime in the reefs, and that the reefs support
Speaker 1: coastal tourism in various ways, you can start to understand
Speaker 1: the scale of this loss. And there's more. Hurricane Irma,
Speaker 1: which was in twenty seventeen, had twenty five foot waves
Speaker 1: heating the Florida reef track. We had a storm surge
Speaker 1: at our building of only five foot, So if we
Speaker 1: didn't have a reef system there, or a healthy reef
Speaker 1: system there, you can imagine that that storm surge in
Speaker 1: those waves would really decimate the land. Sarah Hamlin is
Speaker 1: a biologist at the Moat Marine Laboratory. She's devoted to
Speaker 1: coral reef restoration. She helps to maintain twenty one species
Speaker 1: of stony and branching coral and splits her time between
Speaker 1: the loo Key Reef and her land base on Summerland
Speaker 1: Key in South Florida. It's amazing. You're like an underwater gardener.
Speaker 1: That's exactly what we are. We are underwater gardeners. Her
Speaker 1: lab uses a process called micro fragmentation and fusion, and
Speaker 1: it's impact on underwater wildlife is anything but tiny. My
Speaker 1: name's Sarah Hamlin. I'm a scientist at Marine Lab in Florida,
Speaker 1: and my solvable is regrowing coral reefs forty to fifty
Speaker 1: times a speed that coral grows in the wild. There's
Speaker 1: a number of reasons why coral reef is really important.
Speaker 1: I mean, who doesn't love going out snorkeling and seeing
Speaker 1: colorful reefs teeming with beautiful fish. But they also provide
Speaker 1: us with goods and services, whether that be tourism or employment.
Speaker 1: The food on our table, and for Florida alone, our
Speaker 1: reef system here is estimated to be worth about eight
Speaker 1: billion dollars. Not only that, but these reefs protect our
Speaker 1: land and our property from things like storm surge. So
Speaker 1: a really good example of this is Hurricane Irma, which
Speaker 1: was in twenty seventeen had twenty five foot waves hitting
Speaker 1: the Florida reef track down in loo Key where I am,
Speaker 1: and we had a storm surge at our building, which
Speaker 1: is in summer and key of only five foot. So
Speaker 1: if we didn't have a reef system there, or a
Speaker 1: healthy reef system there, you can imagine that that storm
Speaker 1: surge in those waves would really decimate the land. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I can hear your Australian accent. Australia of course
Speaker 1: samous for the Great Barrier reef. What's going on with
Speaker 1: climate change and coral reefs around the world worldwide, We're
Speaker 1: seeing a reduction in live coral cover. So this is
Speaker 1: across the world, whether it be Australia, the United States,
Speaker 1: or any of our Pacific or Caribbean island nations. You
Speaker 1: might have heard of coral reefs as the rainforests of
Speaker 1: the sea, and that's saying is because even though coral
Speaker 1: reefs take up less than one percent of the sea floor,
Speaker 1: around twenty five percent of all known marine species actually
Speaker 1: rely on coral reefs at some stage of their life.
Speaker 1: We're seeing warmer oceanic temperatures, We're seeing a lot more
Speaker 1: pollution going into the oceans, and this is resulting in
Speaker 1: loss of live coral tissue almost as much as any
Speaker 1: consequence of climate change. I can think of the people
Speaker 1: who are really in contact with this are shocked and
Speaker 1: appalled and upset at a level that those of us
Speaker 1: who don't come into coral into contact with coral on
Speaker 1: a daily basis, I think, don't really get. I mean,
Speaker 1: I you're in the Florida Keys. I have a nephew
Speaker 1: whose into skin diving and spearfishing in Miami, and he's
Speaker 1: a young guy, and just in the years he's been
Speaker 1: doing this the coral around Miami, I mean, he's like
Speaker 1: shocked and upset when he sees it and says he
Speaker 1: can't really fish anymore, just because of the change in
Speaker 1: the last decade. We have lost around ninety percent of
Speaker 1: our coral cover in the last forty or fifty years.
Speaker 1: And some of the reefs in the Keys now or
Speaker 1: the Florida reef tract or as low as between four
Speaker 1: and six percent stony coral cover, which is quite low.
Speaker 1: So we're talking on zoom and you have a fantastic
Speaker 1: backdrop of coral. And I don't know enough of our
Speaker 1: coral to know what kind it is. But we hear
Speaker 1: these terms like staghorn coral and I heard of elkhorn coral.
Speaker 1: What are the main forms of coral that you're working
Speaker 1: with and what do they look like. We have branching
Speaker 1: corals and we have massive corals. So branching corals are
Speaker 1: the staghorns and the elkhorns, and you if you can
Speaker 1: picture what the antlers of a staghorn or elk horn
Speaker 1: look like, they look exactly like that. So skinnier branches
Speaker 1: really perfect three dimensional habitat for fish and shrimp and
Speaker 1: all the little reef critters out there. And then we've
Speaker 1: got our massive corals, and these might be brain corals,
Speaker 1: which essentially look like the folds and grooves of a brain.
Speaker 1: Star corals which have their polyps, are like little cups
Speaker 1: or little stars. And there are reef building corals. They're
Speaker 1: the corals that are recreating the reefs and really growing
Speaker 1: that larger reef structure that remains stable after storms. Your lab,
Speaker 1: as I understand it, is working to restore coral that's
Speaker 1: dying through a process that's called micro fragmentation and fusion.
Speaker 1: And that sounds cool, So could you please explain that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it my marine labs. Essentially, what we do is
Speaker 1: we we call this micro fragmentation and reef skinning. So
Speaker 1: we take a larger parent colony of coral and we
Speaker 1: cut it into very small pieces. We're talking one poll
Speaker 1: up or around one centimeter squared. And this process where
Speaker 1: we cut the coral, we abraid the tissue and remove
Speaker 1: excess skeleton, really promotes incredibly accelerated tissue growth in these
Speaker 1: new fragments. So we liken to this is like when
Speaker 1: you cut your skin, your body works over time to
Speaker 1: really rapidly heal that cut that you've created. So when
Speaker 1: we raise these tiny micro fragments, we raise them by
Speaker 1: the thousands and raise them with their genetic clones, which
Speaker 1: are corals that have exactly the same DNA so they
Speaker 1: came from the same parent colony, and they will be
Speaker 1: raised on land at MO Marine Lab here for up
Speaker 1: to a year, and then after that they've basically filled
Speaker 1: out their substrate, which is what we call a plug,
Speaker 1: and they're about seven square centimeters. We then take those
Speaker 1: individual corals out onto the reef into the Lower Florida
Speaker 1: Keys and we plant or attach them in really tight
Speaker 1: clusters with their genetic clones so it kind of looks
Speaker 1: like a pepperoni pizza. It's about that size, and you
Speaker 1: imagine the peronis are the little corals there, and those
Speaker 1: corals still continue to grow really rapidly onto the reef.
Speaker 1: They recognize their clones and they fuse together to form
Speaker 1: one large colony, and that's what we call reskinning. So
Speaker 1: because coral becomes sexually mature based on size and not
Speaker 1: how old they are, by strategically outplanning these with their
Speaker 1: clones and having them glow really rapidly, we're able to
Speaker 1: grow corals to reproductive size in only a few short years.
Speaker 1: And that's compared to them typically taking decades for wild colonies.
Speaker 1: So you're kind of blowing my mind here. I mean,
Speaker 1: I didn't even know that coral reproduced sexually. I thought
Speaker 1: it just grew. Well, it doesn't only reproduce sexually. The
Speaker 1: process of micro fragmentation is actually an asexual reproduction. So
Speaker 1: by cutting smaller pieces and having it grow, there's nothing
Speaker 1: sexual about that. Some corals out on the reef naturally
Speaker 1: produce both sexually and asexually. So staghorn coral, for example,
Speaker 1: when storms come through, it breaks into smaller pieces, which
Speaker 1: gets scattered around the reef and get lodged into different places,
Speaker 1: and they'll continue to grow out as an absolute genetic
Speaker 1: clone of the piece of coral that they broke from.
Speaker 1: I thought the reason this was such a problem or
Speaker 1: what the main reason is that it grows so slowly
Speaker 1: and it's being destroyed so quickly. So does this method,
Speaker 1: this microfragmentation method, it help you grow it more at
Speaker 1: the speed we're losing it, that is? And what are
Speaker 1: the comparative speeds? I mean how fast they're dying off
Speaker 1: and how fast can it be replaced through this method?
Speaker 1: So the process of microfragmentation, we estimate that we're able
Speaker 1: to regrow coral reefs forty to fifty times faster than
Speaker 1: the speed coral grows in the wild. And how long
Speaker 1: is that? So let's say we microfragment coral, we hold
Speaker 1: it in our land based facility for twelve months, we
Speaker 1: put it on the reef. It takes one to two
Speaker 1: years to fuse together and be sexually chure, so we're
Speaker 1: looking at three years. A wild larvae that settles on
Speaker 1: the reef takes forty to fifty or even longer to
Speaker 1: get to a sexually mature size. Wow. So I have
Speaker 1: a lot of questions about this. First of all, when
Speaker 1: you see the coral in this way through micro fragmentation,
Speaker 1: is the coral that grows more resilient to climate change
Speaker 1: or is it just the same coral and will be
Speaker 1: afflicted in the same way by what's going on. If
Speaker 1: we were to just be refragmenting and fragmenting the same
Speaker 1: coral over and over again, would essentially be putting a
Speaker 1: monoculture of coral out there, coral that is potentially susceptible
Speaker 1: to the next disease it comes through or future climate conditions.
Speaker 1: So that's a really good question. And one thing that
Speaker 1: MOTE prides itself on is the fact that we are
Speaker 1: able to settle and spawn larvae of our own. So
Speaker 1: we're able to collect gammets from wild coral and coral
Speaker 1: all grown in the lab, which increases our genetic diversity,
Speaker 1: so we can make some thoughtful crosses between those coral,
Speaker 1: and the more genotypes you have, the more inherent resilience
Speaker 1: you have in a population. Will this work anywhere in
Speaker 1: the world or is this method specific to the kind
Speaker 1: of coral you've got down there in Florida. We hold
Speaker 1: about twenty one species, and we've tried this on a
Speaker 1: dozen species and it does work. So we've proved that
Speaker 1: it's work. It works here. Now people in the Caribbean
Speaker 1: are also starting to microfragment and grow coral out and
Speaker 1: it's working for them as well in other countries. So
Speaker 1: in Pacific nations, I believe the process of microfragmentation and
Speaker 1: restoration is known. But if we consider the Great Barrier reef,
Speaker 1: for example, the reef itself is in a little bit
Speaker 1: better condition. They're still so they're working a lot with
Speaker 1: larval dispersal, so they will collect larvae and recede the reef.
Speaker 1: They're not at the point that the Florida reef tract
Speaker 1: is at the moment with the gradation. But there's nothing
Speaker 1: to say that this process isn't going to work with
Speaker 1: all the other species of coral in the world. With
Speaker 1: these different approaches to coral restoration, is there competition among
Speaker 1: them and you have the faith to kind of be
Speaker 1: the leading approach to coral restoration? No, I mean absolutely not.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of coral restoration practitioners out there,
Speaker 1: and we have really good relationships with them. All we
Speaker 1: offer our facility at marine Lab is open for collaboration,
Speaker 1: so we invite other scientists to come in and do
Speaker 1: research on our corals. We use our boats to take
Speaker 1: people out and out plant who are researching corals in
Speaker 1: non COVID times. Of course, we head to conferences and
Speaker 1: presentations delivered by scientists from around the world and really
Speaker 1: share our knowledge. This problem is too big to make
Speaker 1: it a business. We really need to be working together,
Speaker 1: and it's awesome to see so many practitioners from all
Speaker 1: over the world being in contact with each other to
Speaker 1: further the science behind restoration. Tell me about the first
Speaker 1: time you planted coral. The first time I planted coral,
Speaker 1: it was great. I felt really accomplished, like what I'm
Speaker 1: doing is actually making a difference. But the coolest part
Speaker 1: about that was not actually planting that coral, but it
Speaker 1: was going back a year later and seeing just how
Speaker 1: much that coral had grown double its size. It actually
Speaker 1: sent branches up, so it started to create that beautiful
Speaker 1: three D structure. Another cool experience I've had really recently,
Speaker 1: which is I think something I'm going to remember for
Speaker 1: the rest of my life, was going out and watching
Speaker 1: some restored coral of as actually spawn and this is
Speaker 1: an endangered species that we outplanted. It fused together and
Speaker 1: it started spawning, and I'm not going to lie, I
Speaker 1: had tears in my mask. It was the most heartwarming,
Speaker 1: wonderful experience that I hope everyone can experience seeing coral
Speaker 1: spawn and seeing a healthy reef, because for me it
Speaker 1: was life changing, since few of us probably will ever
Speaker 1: see coral spawn. What does it look like? What did
Speaker 1: you see? So? I was swimming past this coral, not
Speaker 1: knowing if it was going to spawn or not, and
Speaker 1: I shone my little red torch on it, and I
Speaker 1: saw these lumps that I didn't expect to see, which
Speaker 1: was the gammeat bundles, the eggs and the sperm which
Speaker 1: looked like little pink circles in the coral poly up
Speaker 1: the coral mouth. And then about fifteen minutes later, all
Speaker 1: at once, the entire colony let those gammeat bundles go
Speaker 1: and they floated up towards the sea surfers and all
Speaker 1: the fish came in to have a little bit of
Speaker 1: a feed as well, and it was just beautiful to
Speaker 1: see just nature working. It's amazing. You're like an underwater gardener.
Speaker 1: That's exactly what we are. We are underwater gardeners. Can
Speaker 1: you give me some sense of what it costs to
Speaker 1: do this? And assuming this really works, what does it
Speaker 1: cost to say of the coral of the world. I mean,
Speaker 1: you're seeing a process like this, I guess the first
Speaker 1: question would be to ask you what's it going to
Speaker 1: cost if we don't save the coral reefs? A lot more,
Speaker 1: I assume, but I'll back that up now. So we
Speaker 1: tend to say that coral that we grow on the field,
Speaker 1: so these are our fast growing staghorn corals. When we
Speaker 1: take into account staff time, boat time out planting, and
Speaker 1: cost of equipment, it's about twenty dollars per coral. And
Speaker 1: when we look at the coral that we grow in
Speaker 1: our land facility, it's a little more expensive. The brain,
Speaker 1: boulder and star corals that are the real reef building corals,
Speaker 1: and that's around fifty to eighty dollars per coral. So
Speaker 1: it's not cheap to restore the reefs, but it's very
Speaker 1: expensive if we lose the reefs. Yeah. Now, water is
Speaker 1: continuing to get warmer and warmer year by year. Does
Speaker 1: this process change if you project the consequences of climate
Speaker 1: change further decades? Into the future and water temperatures are
Speaker 1: higher than they are now. Absolutely, so what we do
Speaker 1: at MOTE is really drive restoration by a solid foundation
Speaker 1: of science. So we really are looking into corals that
Speaker 1: are more resilient to future conditions and upscaling production of
Speaker 1: these corals and using these corals out on the reef.
Speaker 1: We end the show by asking if there are things
Speaker 1: that our listeners can do to help with the problem.
Speaker 1: What's something that people who are worried about the last
Speaker 1: and bleaching of coral reefs can do locally? What we
Speaker 1: do actually has an additive or an amplifying effect on
Speaker 1: our local reefs. So I'm sure people have heard of
Speaker 1: the old saying reduce, reuse, recycle, and that actually still
Speaker 1: stands through today. So we can reduce our overconsumption, maybe
Speaker 1: our carbon footprints through shopping locally for produce, maybe growing
Speaker 1: your own food if you haven't the opportunity to do that.
Speaker 1: I would also ask people to consider the pollutants that
Speaker 1: we're putting down the drain or putting onto our lawns,
Speaker 1: So thinking about greener alternatives to cleaning products. If you
Speaker 1: go any these fertilizers use a slow release fertilizer and
Speaker 1: don't use it in the rainy season, and that's going
Speaker 1: to go a long way in really keeping all of
Speaker 1: our watersheds cleaner. If you're eating fish, maybe consider eating
Speaker 1: fish from more sustainable sources because over fishing and destructive
Speaker 1: fishing practices are really going to affect the health of
Speaker 1: coral reefs. There are actually easy to navigate websites like
Speaker 1: FishWatch which can help people work out that the fish
Speaker 1: they're eating does come from a sustainable source and really
Speaker 1: understanding that we as individuals can make a difference. Sarah
Speaker 1: Hamlin as a biologist at the Elizabeth Moore International Center
Speaker 1: for Coral Reef Research and Restoration on Summerland Key. Remember
Speaker 1: to check out our show notes for links to the
Speaker 1: suggestions for ways that you can help slow the destruction
Speaker 1: of coral reefs around the world. Solvable has brought to
Speaker 1: you by Pushkin Industries. Our show is produced by Camille Baptista,
Speaker 1: Senior producer just Slynn Frank. Catherine Girardou is our managing
Speaker 1: and producer, and our executive producer is Mia Lobell. Special
Speaker 1: thanks to Heather Fane, Eric Sandler, Carly Migliori and Cadija Holland.
Speaker 1: I'm Jacob Weisberg. Wow. After talking to you, sire, the
Speaker 1: only thing I want to do is go Snorre. You
Speaker 1: definitely should