{"id":644191,"date":"2026-05-03T01:52:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T01:52:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/644191\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T01:52:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T01:52:15","slug":"coral-reefs-in-mauritius-are-turning-ghostly-white-can-nurseries-rescue-them-from-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/644191\/","title":{"rendered":"Coral reefs in Mauritius are turning ghostly white. Can nurseries rescue them from climate change?"},"content":{"rendered":"

LISTEN | Can baby coral nurseries rescue reefs from climate change?:<\/p>\n

What On Earth23:40Can baby coral nurseries rescue reefs from climate change?<\/p>\n

For Nadeem Nazurally, snorkelling off the coast of Mauritius lately has become disheartening.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The coral reefs that once glowed in vivid greens, blues and pinks now stretch out below him, faded and ghostly.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I see \u2026 all white, it means there is a big problem,\u201d Nazurally, an associate professor at the University of Mauritius\u2019 faculty of agriculture, told What on Earth\u2019s Laura Lynch. \u201cWe are losing all these colours, we are losing life, we are losing those important corals,\u201d which not only act as natural buffers against the island\u2019s frequent cyclones, but are also vital to tourism, fisheries and support a wide range of marine life.<\/p>\n

In Mauritius, home to nearly 250 species of coral and 150 kilometres of reef, the decline has been stark. The island nation off Africa\u2019s southeast coast has lost roughly half of its coral cover since the 1970s, according to the International Union from the Conservation of Nature<\/a>, enduring multiple bleaching events and a devastating oil spill<\/a> in 2020. Across the western Indian Ocean, rising ocean temperatures driven by climate change are triggering mass coral bleaching events<\/a> on an unprecedented scale. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)<\/a> warns the world’s coral reefs would virtually vanish if global warming exceeds 2C above pre-industrial levels.<\/p>\n

\"aBleached coral called Acropora cytherea, found at Belle Mare, Mauritius, in March 2025. Nadeem Nazurally says once coral becomes bleached like this, most won’t recuperate. (Submitted by SECORE)<\/p>\n

But restoration efforts are beginning to show promise. In 2019, with the help of a $10-million US grant ($13.75 million Cdn) from the Adaptation Fund, supported by the United Nations Development Programme, the Mauritian government, working alongside scientists, and other non-governmental organizations, launched a project to restore roughly three hectares of degraded reef by December.<\/p>\n

Two paths to restoration<\/p>\n

Meera Koonjul, director of fisheries at the ministry of agro-industry, food security, blue economy and fisheries in Mauritius, says restoration centres on two approaches: sexual and asexual reproduction.<\/p>\n

Sexual reproduction, known as \u201ccoral spawning,\u201d occurs when corals release eggs and sperm \u2014 gametes \u2014 into a water column in which they fertilize and develop into larvae, eventually forming new coral colonies, Koonjul says.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, asexual reproduction involves corals creating genetic clones. One common method is fragmentation<\/a>, where a broken branch of coral grows to form genetically identical colonies.<\/p>\n

Using this approach, Koonjul says the project established roughly 100 coral nurseries. Fragments were grown for eight months to a year before being transplanted into the seabed in Mauritius\u2019 Blue Bay Marine Park, a 353-hectare protected marine area, known for its rich coral diversity.<\/p>\n

\"AA coral colony growing in a lagoon in the south of Mauritius. (Submitted by Nadeem Nazurally)<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have been able to plant more than 100,000 coral fragments in [this] area,\u201d said Koonjul. \u201cIn this way, we have been building capacity, we have involved the communities and we\u2019ve been able to restore the coral reef.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nazurally, who founded the non-profit EcoMode Society in 2012, has been employing the same method in his own restoration work after noticing corals growing on abandoned fishing basket traps. Instead of allowing the coral fragments \u2014 broken by waves or boat damage \u2014 to suffocate under the sandy sea floor, he collects the orphaned fragments known as \u201ccorals of opportunity\u201d and then puts those abandoned baskets to good use.<\/p>\n

\"ACoral larvae, also known as ‘natural recruitments,’ on structures in Pointe aux Feuilles, Mauritius. (Submitted by Nadeem Nazurally)<\/p>\n

\u201cWe fix [the coral fragments] on those structures,\u201d said Nazurally. \u201cWe build them as a metal frame, two metres by one metre. We call it a nursery and we fix it on rope and we take care of them.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Marie Annielle Espiegle has seen first hand how combining both sexual and asexual methods can accelerate the recovery of degraded reefs.<\/p>\n

As regional training coordinator and restoration technician for U.S.-based non-profit SECORE International, she has worked on coral sexual reproduction projects in the Caribbean for over a decade. These projects involve collecting gametes, raising larvae in floating tanks and eventually outplanting them onto degraded reefs.<\/p>\n

\"AFish and corals inside a coral nursery fixed to metal structures at Pointe aux Feuilles, Mauritius. The corals are grown from coral fragments known as ‘corals of opportunity.’ (Submitted by Nadeem Nazurally)<\/p>\n

While asexual methods can restore reefs more quickly, Espiegle says sexual reproduction produces more resilient corals due to the mixing of genetic material from male and female gametes.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor example, if there\u2019s a disease that killed the parents, the offspring \u2014 that is the new baby corals \u2014 might not be affected at all because they\u2019ve developed some resilience,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

For that reason, she says the most effective restoration strategies use both methods, \u201cincreasing the coral surface, but also introducing new genetics on the reef.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ANadeem Nazurally, pictured here among coral nurseries, has been employing the asexual reproduction method of fragmentation in his own restoration work after noticing corals growing on abandoned fishing basket traps. (Submitted by Nadeem Nazurally)The clock is ticking<\/p>\n

Ahead of its December deadline, the island has restored just over 50 per cent of its target, Koonjul says. She adds the ministry of fisheries has asked the Adaptation Fund for an 18-month extension to reach its goal of restoring just over three hectares \u2014 something she is confident they can achieve.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have already started growing the corals in the nursery,\u201d said Koonjul. \u201cSo we would have quite an amount of corals and we would be restoring them very quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Espiegle, the work goes beyond protecting an ecosystem \u2014 it\u2019s about preserving Mauritius\u2019 identity.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve known the coral reefs since we\u2019ve been born,\u201d she said. \u201cThe island is what it is because there has been the reefs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"aCorals that were transplanted to the seabed at Pointe-aux-Feuilles, Mauritius two years ago. (Submitted by Nadeem Nazurally)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LISTEN | Can baby coral nurseries rescue reefs from climate change?: What On Earth23:40Can baby coral nurseries rescue…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":644192,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":["post-644191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=644191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}