December 21, 2024
2024 WINTER SOLSTICE REPORT
CORAL REEF ECOCIDE
Coral reef killers: Where, when, how, why, and by whom, will be the theme of a forthcoming book by Tom Goreau, a historic eulogy to a vanished ecosystem, killed by human greed.
CORAL BLEACHING
2023 Global Warming Patterns
2023 was the hottest year documented in world history, by a large margin, and 2024 will certainly be hotter. 2023 had record coral bleaching in many places, and maps of ocean temperature HotSpots not only revealed areas of worst coral mortality, but also global changes in ocean circulation that are transporting heat to the poles faster, accelerating ice melting, and decreasing ocean turnover in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. These changes are positive feedbacks that act to accelerate global warming and global sea level rise.
References:
The world’s richest remaining coral reefs at Raja Ampat, West Papua, and in Eastern Indonesia, which have hitherto been protected by strong tidal current-driven cold-water upwelling, bleached in 2024.
References:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tqyct_vxCkc
Caribbean bleaching mortality
Almost all Caribbean corals bleached completely during 2023, and most died. 2024 will be much hotter, for longer, than 2023, in the Eastern and Southern Caribbean. Surviving corals are now a handful of mostly weedy coral species, and some large and slightly more resistant head corals. In Negril, Jamaica, corals bleached and died within a week. A heroic search for survivors is underway all around Jamaica, led by Felix Charnley, and survivors are being mapped with some fragments transplanted to nurseries at sites with cleaner water quality. We will link to their reports as they come available on line.
All Caribbean coral nurseries using conventional line, PVC, concrete, or other exotic substrates were apparently wiped out during 2023. Temperature rise was so rapid that even Biorock Acropora corals all died in Jamaica (the hottest part of the Caribbean in 2023), most Biorock corals died in Carriacou, Grenadines, but higher survival of Acropora on Biorock projects in Saint Barthelemy, agrees with the shorter duration of extreme temperatures at those locations. Reports on coral survivors at these sites and Curaçao by local researchers will be posted here as they become available.
References:
Only one tiny spot in the entire Caribbean escaped severe mortality excess temperature in 2023 and 2024, the Bay of Matanzas, Cuba. GCRA assisted researchers and students at the University of Havana Marine Science Institute assessed reef health at the Playa Coral and Laguna de Maya Marine Protected Area. This unique site still has high coral cover of live elkhorn and staghorn coral that have vanished throughout the Caribbean. They escaped through a lucky local accident of ocean currents, rain, and clouds. GCRA will work with Cuban marine scientists to set up Biorock Coral Arks to propagate the survivors as quickly as possible and enhance their stress resistance. A presentation on their importance was made at the New York Academy of Sciences.
References:
https://www.nyas.org/ideas-insights/blog/a-new-perspective-to-sustainable-reef-restoration/
https://www.cubaplusmagazine.com/en/environment/planting-corals-planet-life.html
GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE POLITICS
UNCCC COP out again!
Coral Reefs and Small Island Developing States were betrayed once again, for the 29th straight time, by the United Nations Convention on Climate Change (UNCCC) Conference of Parties (COP) in Baku, Azerbaijan. Fossil fuel-producing countries once again blocked carbon accounting and responsibility for reparations for damages caused by global warming and global sea level rise that they have caused. Meanwhile, fossil fuel combustion, profits, and atmospheric carbon dioxide reached record levels. Small Island Developing States (SIDS), will once again be the first and worst victims. It will become much more out of control a month after this report; the 2024 US elections mark the final death sentence for coral reefs and eventual drowning of low islands. As the inevitable result, we are now all now on a mad roller coaster hurtling for runaway overshoot of temperature and sea level that could take hundreds of thousands to millions of years to reverse.
References:
https://www.globalcoral.org/small-islands-have-legal-right-to-to-control-co2-and-climate-change/
MALDIVES
GCRA field activities in 2024 focused on the Maldives, the lowest country on Earth, and the most vulnerable to global sea level rise. Massive dredging is underway to create artificial islands, causing turbidity that is killing corals.
References:
https://www.globalcoral.org/coral-sediment-dredging-must-stop-during-bleaching-events/
https://www.globalcoral.org/maldives-dredge-dumping-on-coral-reefs-stopped-by-injunction/
N.B. The injunction against dredging, based on inadequate Environmental Impact Assessments lasted one day, as the Maldives High Court ruling was overturned the next day by the Maldives Supreme Court, which ruled that economic considerations trumped environmental ones.
A mass mortality coral bleaching event in 2016, and several more but milder events since, have resulted in low live coral. Maldivian coral reefs in the past grew much faster than they could be eroded, building up all the Maldivian islands from excess sand production. These reefs, now covered largely by dead corals, are slowly crumbling apart, unable to protect beaches from erosion or provide new sand for them, as they had before the 1998 mass bleaching event.
Inhabited islands and tourism islands are now almost all surrounded by seawalls made of boulders imported from India, or imported Portland Cement (each ton of which releases a ton of CO2 to the atmosphere), both very expensive. Moreover, these are built as vertical or near vertical walls, a design that maximizes wave reflection, and basal scour, guaranteeing that all sand is washed away in front of the seawall, and then under, until it collapses and needs to be rebuilt. The reflected waves create currents that wash away sandbanks nearby and deposit them further away.
This structure-induced erosion and dredging smothering corals is completely unlike how Maldivian coral reefs grew sand beaches and islands in the past, but now Biorock reefs can serve the same function as the vanished corals, growing back sand beaches and entire islands naturally.
References:
https://www.globalcoral.org/maldives-can-build-its-own-future-with-biorock-technology/
Male
In July in Male, the capital of the Maldives, the first public presentation of the results of the 1997-1998 Biorock Maldives reef and beach regeneration project results, and their significance for the future of the Maldives;
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Velaa
The Velaa (Turtle in the Divehi language of the Maldives) Private Island Resort was so happy with the results of the first Biorock reef regeneration projects, which quickly had the highest live coral cover and fish populations on the island, providing an ecotourism attraction for their guests, that they requested a new project on the other side of the island. This was installed in December 2024. The Dive Shop is intensively documenting coral growth on Biorock reefs. First year results were presented at the Maldives Marine Science Conference, in July 2024.
References:
https://www.plus.mv/photo-stories
Following installation of the new Velaa project, GCRA worked with the local government, the Noonu Atoll Council, to train communities in innovative technologies for climate change adaptation and assess potential for Biorock in the southern part of Earth’s largest atoll. More details will soon be provided by the Noonu Atoll Council. Thanks are due to the many people who helped and provided information, far too many to all list here, orchestrated remotely by Mohammad Basheer, Noonu Atoll Council President, and on site by Muhayimin, Planning Officer for the Noonu Atoll Council. They will be fully credit in future postings.
References:
https://www.globalcoral.org/maldives-ecosystem-regeneration-workshops-december-9-15-2024/
Velidhu
Velidhu, a densely populated island, has recently been expanded in size with dredged, pumped, and dumped marine sand for land fill, on top of former sea grass beds. The landfill “reclaimed” areas are protected from shore erosion by a rock wall, except at artificial beach areas. These public and ecotouriam zoned beaches are undergoing erosion, in large part due to loss of the shallow staghorn and table corals that used to protect the beaches. GCRA gave lectures on Biorock technology applications for atoll islands, and did a demonstration project with a solar panel showing immediate results, demonstrating how Biorock could grow building materials in the sea to replace coral mining and imported cement.
Working with a local NGO that had been growing corals on steel frames, we went to an eroding artificial beach eroding in part from the reflection of waves from the end of the seawall next to it. The artificial beach site had originally been protected by a large geotextile tube, which quickly collapsed, and remnants of the empty tube remain partially buried in sand.
Using a single solar panel, mounted on a rack on top of the rock seawall, a Biorock wave absorbing reef was constructed on top of the flat geotextile tube, made from 10 of the “Martian Spider” modules the local coral restoration NGO had made to grow corals. This site is not suitable for coral growth, but the Biorock reef will increase growth of sand-producing seaweeds, and will be designed to trap sand and create a sand bar that will help the beach grow naturally. If successful it can be expanded to protect the entire beach. Progress on this project will be posted on local web sites and GCRA will link to them.
The other eroding artificial beach could be also be protected using Biorock to raise the height of the two beach rock ridges in front of it:
References:
https://www.globalcoral.org/growing-solid-subsurface-marine-foundations-with-biorock-technology/
https://www.baokalo.com/about-us
Maafaru
Maafaru has a very large shallow lagoon, but almost all the most exposed side of the island has been filled in with pumped sand. After one year there was an erosion cliff on the ocean side, and it seemed that about 5 meters of sand had eroded away. There will therefore be a strong need to protect the area, which could be done with Biorock shore protection reefs, also growing sand producing algae.
GCRA went with local divers to assess coral reefs in the far north of the reef, furthest from human influence, where local divers documented exceptional, but very localized, recovery since the 2016 bleaching event. One coral colony appears to have grown around 100 meters across since the bleaching event, and grows right up the low tide level. A similar size patch is known on the nearby island of Manadhoo. Monitoring the growth and health of these exceptional corals, and propagating them, should be a top priority for restoring coral reef health, reef fisheries, mariculture, and ecotourism.
Kendhikulhudhoo
This island has had minimal dredging for the small port, and the most natural habitat, forest, lakes, and mangroves of any of the islands seen. It also has the most agriculture, due to dark forest soil that had formed in the central axis of the long island, and ancient ruins. The island has real potential for nature-based ecotourism, for those who don’t enjoy the fake “nature” of the resort islands.
Erosion issues were seen at sites at the North end of Kendhikulhudhoo and along the East coast, which could be addressed by growing the nearby fringing reef crest and growing more sand producing algae.
Agrogeology was a major focus of time on Kendhikulhudhoo. Atoll limestone soils are limited by all essential elements except Calcium. Most crop plants showed clear signs of nutrient limitation, unless they have nitrogen-fixing symbionts, which grow very well indeed, but which may be limited by dust transport of trace elements. Strategies to greatly improve soil health and productivity on atoll limestone soils were proposed using a two-prong strategy: First, use of basalt rock powders from India as proposed in our 2024 paper on use of India’s agro-geological resources to feed itself and remove CO2. Second, use of locally produced biochar from invasive plants to produce biochar to put in soils to hold nutrients and carbon, after maturation with basalt powder and nitrogen rich organic matter (such as treated sewage effluents, Moringa leaves, seaweeds, seagrass, etc.), with the excess heat being used to produce electricity or dry crops, such as almonds. Invasive plants identified were mostly Caribbean, including Jamaica Cherry (Muntingia calabura), Wedelia trilobata, Leucaenea leucocephala, etc., which are ideal for chopping back where invasive and turning into biochar for soils to grow more valuable crops. The major invasive tree were several different Casuarina species, spreading rapidly from seed. Casuarina is the only wood that can be burned green, can be coppiced and grown to produce the best firewood in the world, producing the most heat per Kilogram,. Casuarina makes superior high-quality biochar, and so do coconut shells, so there are many possibilities to convert pestiferous plants over-running islands, and coconut wastes, into fertile fruit tree gardens on Kendhikulhudhoo. We propose pilot experiments in conjunction with Dr. Ishfaq Ahmad Mir, trace element expert at the Geological Survey of India.
References:
Information was also shared on innovative uses of breadfruit from the Trees That Feed Foundation and of Moringa, and other plants:
References:
https://kendhikulhudhoo.gov.mv/en
RESEARCH PROJECTS
In May 2024, GRCA joined Stonybrook University in a collaborative research project studying the effects of Biorock method applied to molusk survival and growth. And in July a coral reef restoration initiative by scientists from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory was implemented with Biorock method in Bora Bora, with the objective of document its effects in coral growth.
IN MEMORIAM: ORRIN PILKEY
The late Orrin Pilkey (URL) was a great geologist who fearlessly spoke truth to power about eroding beaches as the inevitable result of unsustainable beach development. He was an environmental hero, but was derided by developers and politicians, who wanted believe whatever those they paid to tell them what they wanted to hear said. His highly recommended books on beaches and their mismanagement are listed here
A copy of his New York Times obituary can be seen at:
https://archive.ph/gHWR6#selection-657.0-657.57
Half the beaches in the world are forecast to vanish this century from global sea level rise, and that assumes no further increase in sea level and no stronger storms caused by higher temperature! Throughout his career Orrin Pilkey showed that the standard methods of shore protection are costly, and inevitably become disastrous failures. He almost singlehandedly tried to inform the public of facts that have been known, and ignored, for thousands of years!
Orrin’s basic mantra was “don’t mess with Mother Nature, you will lose”. He told me that his very first presentation was scheduled immediately after a coral reef talk by my father, Prof. Thomas F. Goreau of the University of the West Indies, in Jamaica. The room was packed full, crowds outside could not enter, nor could Orrin, though he was the next speaker. The room emptied immediately after the talk, before Orrin could speak about beach erosion to an almost empty room. At that time, it seemed beaches would last forever, like the coral reefs that built them!
GOLDSCHMIDT CONFERENCE
Electricity in the origin and evolution of life
Tom Goreau, President of GCRA gave a talk on Mineral electrolysis and the origin and evolution of life at the Goldschmidt Geochemistry Conference. This lecture will be expanded into a book.
References:
https://conf.goldschmidt.info/goldschmidt/2024/meetingapp.cgi
DEDICATION
Rosalina Atlas, 2 years old, will never see the magnificent coral reefs her family documented for nearly a century. Please help her save coral reefs!