Viability of Mineral Accretion in Coral Restoration

ABSTRACT

Climate change is increasingly and violently being felt especially in climate-vulnerable places of the world including those within the tropical coastal waters where the majority of remaining coral reefs are located. Ocean acidification also is rising as an equally lethal threat to corals with a more potent direct impact on their physiological processes. On top of all these are the continuing local anthropogenic externalities and perturbations within coastal waters to the detriment of remaining coral covers within it. The combined impacts of these concerns on corals are already proven and projected to result to coral species extinction in just a few years from now (Bellard et al, 2012; Bruno & Selig, 2007; Donner et al, 2005; Hansen et al, 2008; Veron et al, 2009; Hoegh-guldberg et al, 2007).

Passive conservation efforts focusing on mitigating local stressors have become the norm during the past four decades as the primary solution to declining coral cover. They were generally successful in their goal of reducing effects of local stressors during those said decades. However, menacing effects of anthropogenic carbon emissions resulting to global stressors, namely climate change and ocean acidification, can render passive conservation efforts as futile in the coming years without the assistance of pro-active methods aided by modern technologies and approaches in infrastructure management.

Mineral accretion technology has the potential to mitigate most of the effects from climate change, ocean acidification and anthropogenic perturbations and be a complementary coral restoration strategy on top of current conservation initiatives such as marine reserves and no-take zones. This has been proven successful in many marine reserves in Indonesia as well as tourist islands in Thailand, Maldives, and South America. Utilizing strategic

principles of complex systems, mineral accretion implementation can result to sustainable management regimes in coral conservation efforts.