Re-growing the Great Barrier Reef, one coral at a time

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FITZROY ISLAND. KAZINFORM On a tropical island, halfway between Australia's Great Barrier Reef and the north Queensland city of Cairns, researchers and members of the tourism industry are joining forces in an attempt to grow healthy corals to restore the world-famous reef.

In a process colloquially referred to as "coral gardening," researchers and volunteers with the Reef Restoration Foundation, a nonprofit social enterprise, take cuttings from corals in the reef surrounding Fitzroy Island, and hang them from plastic underwater frames called "trees" to promote quick growth, KYODO NEWS reports.In the seven months since the first cuttings were harvested, the corals have grown remarkably fast, almost doubling in size, says the foundation's CEO and Strategy Director Stewart Christie.

"(When hanging from the trees) they're in this kind of a fattening pen, and they're just using their energy to grow," the 48-year-old sustainable economic development expert said.

"When they're on the reef, the corals are fighting and using energy to keep off pests, algae and crown-of-thorns starfish," he said, referring to a coral-eating predator that can devastate reefs when in plague proportions.

The foundation's cuttings are able to grow quickly thanks to the volunteer divers who affectionately tend to the floating trees, using bamboo toothbrushes to brush away algae and monitor the cuttings' progress.

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