Coral reefs - Coral Bleaching - Florida Keys reef restoration- Dave Grant - Sandy Hook, NJ - Brookdale College Ocean Institute - Plants, animals, marinelife, oceanography

Repairing Reefs - 2006 Conference
Key Largo, Florida
Dave Grant, Sandy Hook, NJ
Protecting reefs, Birdlife, Underwater views, Shorelines

Reef Resilience The Nature Conservancy, Florida Keys

Many of the world's reefs are threatened locally by human activities like
overfishing, ship groundings, sewage, dredging and coastal development.

Globally, warmer sea temperatures and diseases have damaged
great areas of reefs and the most obvious clue to this is "coral bleaching."
This worldwide problem is illustrated above with red and orange dots
where bleaching has been significant. Sites include the most remote reefs
in the world.

	Florida Keys: Human activities, habitat loss and global changes threaten wildlife as diverse as birds, manatees, the Florida crocodile and whole ecosystems like coral reefs. The Reef Resilience meeting each year explores ways to protect and repair reefs.
In 1997-8 bleaching caused 90% mortality in 16% of the worlds coral reefs. (From the Coral Bleaching Handbook)	The impacts are getting worse and even when corals survive bleaching, it may take decades for them to be repaired.
	One method being tried in Florida is growing coral to reintroduce it into damaged areas. So far this results are promising on a small scale. Visit: Reef Resilience The Nature Conservancy, Florida Keys
Normal: A healthy reef has colorful corals that are inhabited by symbiotic algae; and a great variety of fishes.	Bleached: Heat stressed corals expel their algae, which actually produce most of the food for the coral polyps.
High school students in the Florida Keys are helping to raise corals to repair reefs.	An egret salutes us as we head out to examine their restoration efforts off Key Largo.
Coral fragments are cultured on ceramic blocks. These are maitained by students and transplanted to restoration sites.
	Success! New growths of transplanted corals. (Left) A cormorant applauds us upon our safe return after visiting three patch reefs.
Many organizations are involved in protecting reefs. Visit their sites: REEF - Reef Environmental Education Foundation www.reef.org NOAA Coral Reef Program www.coralreef.noaa.gov US Coral Reef Task Force www.coralreef.gov Reef Resilience The Nature Conservancy, Florida Keys Some materials are from the Coral Bleaching Handbook	Sandy Hook students celebrate Dave's return and pose with a coveted Nature Conservancy Reef Restoration Project shirt. Learn about the project at the TNC site.
For school programs on Coral Reefs and Global Change, contact us at Sandy Hook. Next year is the Year of the Reef.