Our world is threatened with the corals’ disappearance. In more and more places, over 90% of the coral population has died. Most of us do not remain indifferent and responded with an innovative method – they will use electro-shock therapy to stimulate these corals to grow again.
There are several factors responsible for the corals’ destruction. Ocean pollution, fishing nets and the increasing temperature of the planetary ocean are among the most important. As water temperatures rise, algae living on the coral surface die and leave the bare calcium carbonate substrate exposed that bleaches the corals causing their death.
Since corals have a fix structure, they are the only organism that cannot run away from pollution. They need clean water and plenty of light to live, reproduce and feed. The algae that live inside these corals give them their fantastic colour.
Conceived by coral expert Tom Goreau of the United States and German architecture professor Wolf Hilbertz, both members of the Global Coral Reef Alliance, the project started at the beginning of the new century and has already achieved remarkable results. Te Karang Lestari Project — “coral preservation” in Indonesian — is the world’s largest coral nursery ever built using this technology.
The Karang Lestari Project also received the SKAL Ecotourism Award 2002 for the world’s best ecotourism project. SKAL is the world’s largest tourism and travel organization.
To repopulate the area as quickly as possible with coral and fish, coral nurseries were built using the Electrolytic Mineral Accretion Technology (BiorockTM) of Hilbertz and Goreau.