Hope for “Badass Corals”

 

Maze coral, photographed at Roatan Island, Honduras.

HERE’S A GLIMMER OF OPTIMISM FOR A WORLD BESET by seemingly constant pessimistic news about oceans, reefs and marine animal: A TED talk by a coral reef specialist about Why I Still Have Hope for Coral Reefs.

“We can be incredibly pessimistic on the short term, and mourn what we lost and what we really took for granted,” suggested marine biologist Kristin Marhaver, “but we can still be optimistic on the long term, and we can still be ambitious about what we fight for and what we expect from our governments, from our planet.”

Pillar coral, cited by Dr. Marhaver as a “Badass.” This specimen photographed at Roatan.

DON’T MESS WITH CORALS  Corals have been living on planet Earth for hundreds of millions of years,” Dr. Marhaver said. “They survived the extinction of the dinosaurs. They’re badasses.”

She added, “An individual coral can go through tremendous trauma and fully recover if it’s given a chance and it’s given protection. Corals have always been playing the long game, and now so are we.”

Dr. Marhaver is a coral reef biologist at the CARMABI Research Station in Curacao and a TED senior fellow. This walk was given at a TED conference in April, 2017.

SOURCE: Why I Still Have Hope for Coral Reefs,” TED Talk, Kristin Marhaver, PhD, April, 2017.

 

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