News Excerpt:

One of Saudi Arabia's top universities has announced a Red Sea project described as the world’s largest coral reef restoration.

More details about the news:

• The King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) initiative aims to produce hundreds of thousands of corals each year.
• The newly built nursery, on the coast of NEOM in northwest Saudi Arabia, is set to transform coral restoration efforts with a production capacity of 40,000 corals annually. According to the University, the scheme “represents a significant step towards restoring reefs globally”.
• It is seen as an important step because many reefs have suffered from bleaching events due to rising temperatures.
• Coral nurseries like the one that Kaust has created involve coral fragments being placed on what are sometimes compared to clothes lines.

Other coral restoration projects

• The UAE too carries out coral restoration work, with the Environment Agency – Abu Dhabi having been rehabilitating reefs since 2021.
• Another initiative, involving scientists at New York University Abu Dhabi, involves cross-breeding heat-tolerant corals with types from cooler environments that are experiencing temperature increases. The cross-bred corals produced are better able to cope with high temperatures than purebred types.
• A separate project to help corals cope with increasing temperatures, tested by researchers in Australia, involves shading reefs.

Threats to Coral Reefs

• Pollution, overfishing, destructive fishing practices using dynamite or cyanide, collecting live corals for the aquarium market, mining coral for building materials, and a warming climate are some of the many ways that people damage reefs all around the world every day.
• Corals in the Arabian Gulf, the Red Sea, the Great Barrier Reef and the Caribbean are among the many affected.
• Experts estimate up to 90% of global coral reefs will experience severe heat stress by 2050.

• The above image shows a number of threatened endemic reef-forming coral species by country. Endemic species (1) are those known to occur naturally within one country only. Threatened species (2) are those with an extinction risk category of either 'Critically Endangered' (3), 'Endangered', or 'Vulnerable'.