How You Can Restore an Economy By Saving A Coral Reef

World Changing Ideas

It’s World Oceans Day! And we’re celebrating our blue planet by talking about coral reefs.

Coral bleaching events are like 100-year flood events: ideally they're only supposed to happen once every 100 years but that's not the reality. In 2005, the U.S. lost half of its Caribbean coral reefs in one year due to a major bleaching event and this past March the Great Barrier Reef experienced its sixth mass bleaching event on record. But there is some good news!

We talked with James Robinson, a research fellow at Lancaster University in the U.K, who recently found that bleached corals could actually provide sustenance to local coastal communities. Sam Teicher is the co-founder of Coral Vita, a company that grows corals to restore our world's dying reefs. They are not only restoring coral that's been lost but also helping support local economies that rely on coral reefs.