Coral Rehabilitation
In the UAE, dredging, land reclamation and other destructive underwater activities regularly take place. As a result, the coral reefs that were once thriving, have ultimately perished (Al Suwaidi, 2020). Furthermore, with an increase in the global temperature and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels (Lindsey, 2020), the highly sensitive coral reefs are struggling to survive.
EMEG is the first organization to carry out coral farming in the UAE. Their resident scientists, employees and volunteers alike, participate in the process.
Coral farming, as performed by EMEG, involves harvesting existing, healthy corals from local reefs, fragmenting the collected coral and then growing the fragments into new, robust corals. The farmed corals are then translocated back into their original habitat, significantly expanding the size of the existing reef, reviving the ecosystems that are reliant on the reefs. The process is akin to plant propagation, performed underwater in opposed to on land.
The loss of coral reefs poses a huge threat to a diverse conglomeration of stakeholders. There is no ‘main group’ of stakeholders negatively impacted by coral reef destruction, but rather a vast collection of people that will be significantly worse off in different ways if reefs aren’t maintained and rehabilitated.
