A British scientist is leading an ambitious project to plant parts of the beleaguered Great Barrier Reef with young, healthy corals raised in man-made coral nurseries.
David Suggett, a marine biologist who completed his PhD at the University of Southampton before emigrating seven years ago, has been buoyed by initial results on parts of the reef off north Queensland.
Under the programme, coral spawn has been collected, coral nurseries established and new corals grown and replanted on reefs that needed to be repaired. The almost 1,500-mile long reef, the world’s largest natural structure, has been affected by warming seas, triggering three mass coral bleaching events that have killed 50 per cent of shallow-water corals in just five years.
Bleaching events occur when heat causes corals
