Coral larvae may drift hundreds of miles away from their parents before settling on the reef for the rest of their lives.
It was an ambitious idea, he said, that would require political support and significant financial support – about $10 million by his estimate – as well as community buy-in. Not every super reef can be fenced for fishing and other activities, he said.
“People need to live. People need to eat. They need to fish.” It will be important to consult and co-design any protected areas with affected communities in this corridor, as is being done in Laura, he said.
But overall, the idea seemed feasible, said Edwards of the Marshall Islands Marine Resources Authority. “The idea of creating a multi-national network of marine-protected areas linking resilient reefs in the Marshall Islands, Kiribati and Tuvalu is a very promising concept,” he said.
Other experts agree. “Protecting source reefs and well-placed steps between them can maintain dispersal networks that can share heat-tolerant adaptations and provide new coral larvae to help degraded reefs recover,” said Emily Darling, director of coral reefs at the Wildlife Conservation Society. “Taking into account the connectivity between high-integrity, climate-resilient rocks multiplies their conservation value throughout the region.”
Once established, this first super reef corridor could serve as a proof of concept for creating similar protected networks around the world, Cohen said.
Future corridors could be built between Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia or between India, the Maldives and the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean, he said.
Ultimately, he said, the success of these networks will depend on countries’ willingness to cooperate and choose which reefs they will prioritize. Her role, as she sees it, is to provide scientific data to inform those choices. She wants to ensure that resources are directed where they can make the greatest impact – as quickly as possible.
“This is an urgent mission,” she said.
Forecasters recently warned that El Niño conditions have once again formed in the tropical Pacific and are expected to strengthen this fall.
“We have a very strong possibility of a heat wave in the Marshall Islands in the coming months,” Cohen said. She was already having nightmares about destroying the living rocks she had just visited.
“It’s just an awesome feeling,” he said, looking toward the shallow reef offshore of Bokanbotin.
But when trouble came, she wanted to stay there. He had begun planning his return trip to the Marshall Islands even before he left.
“We want to be there at the peak of that heat wave to send yellowfin out 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 need to make sure.”
This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization covering climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here.
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