How We Can Restore Coral Reefs

Time​ Magazine

3 hours ago

The ocean may be nature's single greatest gift to humanity. It provides about half of the oxygen we breathe, feeds billions of people, supports countless jobs in every corner of the globe, and absorbs more carbon dioxide than anything else on earth. The ocean connects us all.
But right now, the ocean is sounding an unmistakable alarm. Fishing boats around the world are returning emptier. Coastal zones are growing warmer and murkier, and they are becoming more polluted as millions of gallons of water laced with pharmaceuticals, forever chemicals, and sewage leak into the sea. Coral reefs are turning white.
We come to these challenges with different experiences and perspectives. One of us lives in the Florida Keys and chairs the White House Environmental Advisory Task Force. The other lives in Hawaii and the Bay Area and leads a global technology company. At the same time, we share something fundamental: a deep commitment to the health of the oceans—and a deep belief that differences in some areas should not prevent us from working together on pressing issues where we agree. We need to roll up our sleeves and get to work.
We have an opportunity for global action. From June 9 to June 13, officials from more than 100 nations, scientists, and innovators will gather in Nice, France, for the United Nations Ocean Conference, held only once every few years. The meeting will test our ability to work together across sectors, borders, and worldviews, and to act on behalf of future generations.
That's why we're calling for a focused global effort to restore coral-reef health. Coral-reef ecosystems—from the famous reefs of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary to the Great Barrier—are the ocean's rainforests. Vital and vulnerable, they shelter nearly a quarter of marine life, buffer coastal communities from storms, and sustain billions of dollars in fisheries and tourism. Yet they are disappearing at unprecedented speed.
Rising temperatures are part of the problem. But so are decades of negligence, coastal pollution, overfishing, and damage from dredging and poorly planned ports and coastal infrastructure.
We believe that addressing coral-reef health is a smart place to focus—not because it is the only crisis, but because it offers a clear, actionable, achievable goal that can unite governments and ocean advocates across sectors. We also know that nature-based solutions are powerful, proven, and cost-effective tools for addressing the impacts of climate change and biodiversity loss. Restoring coral reefs—like planting and conserving trees—empowers nature to do what it does best: regenerate, protect, and sustain life.
We've seen a model for this kind of collaboration before.
As part of the Trillion Trees (1t.org) movement, the first Trump Administration joined an unprecedented global effort to reforest the planet. Trees are the planet's natural air purifiers—the single most effective 'device' we have to pull carbon out of the atmosphere. There remains far more work to do. Yet with more than 9.7 billion trees pledged and more than 54 million hectares of land under sustainable management so far, the Trillion Trees initiative demonstrates the progress that's possible when we align behind a common goal.
We believe that we can take lessons from the Trillion Trees movement—underwater. It's helpful to think of the ocean as a patient in the emergency room. Long-term recovery depends on curing the disease, and, yes, different people may have different ideas on the best long-term approach. But right now, we're losing a lot of blood, and we need to stop it—fast. We need to deal with immediate problems that threaten the health of coral reefs.
Solutions exist, and many communities, ecopreneurs, and conservationists are already deploying them. Here's what a focused, global effort to restore coral reefs could look like:
1. Curb septic and sewage runoff —especially in critical reef zones like Hawaii, South Florida, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, and Guam—by upgrading and modernizing the infrastructure that treats waste water and scaling new technologies such as denitrification that converts toxic nitrogen to a harmless gas. We also need to set up water-testing programs that help us pinpoint and address pollution hot spots near the most important reefs. Nothing we do to restore coral reefs will matter if water quality doesn't improve to the point where they can survive.
2. Scale science-based coral restoration, including advanced farming of specially grown corals and responsible management of protected marine zones.
3. Stop plastic —which harms reefs by smothering coral, increasing the risk of disease, and entangling marine life—before it reaches the ocean. We can tackle this through bans on single-use waste, incentives for alternative materials, and as a last resort, the implementation of new technologies that intercept ocean-bound plastic in waterways. The world needs more efforts like Hawaii's Papahanaumokuakea Marine Debris Project, which is removing plastics from the ocean, and the Benioff Ocean Science Lab, which helps innovate solutions to capture and remove plastic from rivers before it ends up in the ocean.
4. Empower fishing businesses to promote sustainable practices by eliminating overfishing, ending harmful fisheries subsidies globally, and reducing the sometimes destructive impacts of fisheries on marine habitats.
5. Restore coastlines with mangroves, wetlands, seagrass meadows and coastal forests. Many of these ecosystems can serve as nursery habitat for commercially and ecologically important coral-reef fish. They also often act together to dissipate waves that pound coastlines and serve as natural, free, and self-repairing seawalls. Healthy shorelines mean healthier oceans, and healthier oceans in turn mean safer and more prosperous coastal communities.
We recognize that some will say calling attention to discrete, nature-based approaches like coral-reef restoration is a moral hazard, distracting from the bigger long-term solutions to our environmental challenges. At the same time, there is widespread agreement that the crisis facing the oceans demands a diverse range of approaches. We need to harness every available solution. Sometimes, we need to start with the work—and the opportunity for collaboration—right in front of us.
That's what makes this week's conference in Nice so important. It comes as ocean action has never been more essential. It will require leadership from every sector, including business, government and science. The question is whether we can turn shared understanding into shared action. What's needed is the will to save the ocean, one commitment at a time.