Coral can drag larvae hundreds of miles from their parents before settling on a rock for the rest of their lives.
It was an ambitious idea, he said, and it would require political support and significant financial support (around $10 million) and community buy-in. According to him, not every super reef can be surrounded by fishing and other activities.
“People have to live. People have to eat. They have to fish.” As in Laura, it would be critical to consult and co-design any protected areas with affected communities in this corridor, he said.
Overall, the idea seemed feasible, said Edwards of the Marshall Islands Marine Resources Authority. “The idea of creating a multinational network of marine protected areas connecting the standing reefs across the Marshall Islands, Kiribati and Tuvalu is a very promising concept,” he said.
Other experts agree. “Protecting source reefs and well-placed stepping stones between them can maintain dispersal networks that can share heat-tolerant adaptations and provide new coral larvae to help regenerate degraded reefs,” said Emily Darling, director of coral reefs at the Wildlife Conservation Society. “Estimating the connectivity between highly intact, climate-resilient reefs increases their conservation value across the region.”
Once established, this first Super Reef corridor could be a proof of concept for creating similar protected networks around the world, Cohen said.
According to him, future corridors could be created between Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia, or India, the Maldives and the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean.
Ultimately, he said, the success of these networks will depend on countries’ willingness to cooperate and choose which reefs to prioritize. His role, as he sees it, is to deliver scientific information to inform those choices. He wants to ensure that resources are focused as quickly as possible where they can have the greatest impact.
“This is an urgent mission,” he said.
Forecasters recently warned El Nino conditions are re-forming in the tropical Pacific and are expected to strengthen by this fall.
“We have a pretty strong chance of experiencing a heat wave in the Marshall Islands in the coming months,” Cohen said. He was already having nightmares about destroying the living rocks he had just visited.
“It’s just a terrible feeling,” he said, looking out over the shallow rocks in Bokanbotin Sea.
But he wanted to be there when it hit. Before he left, he had already started planning his return trip to the Marshall Islands.
“We want to be at the peak of the heat wave to send out the Yellowfin and see how the corals are doing,” he said. “I have a good idea which corals will resist because we’ve seen them do it before. But we have to be sure.”
This article originally appeared there Domestic Climate Newsis a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization covering climate, energy, and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here.
