What's the difference between this coral and this coral?
Nothing. They're the same coral. They're clones.
That's right.
This coral was broken off this one.
And then they've grown to become their very own living organisms.
The technical term for this process is called micro fragmenting,
and it's being used to save dying coral reefs around the world,
many of which have taken centuries to grow.
All of these corals behind me are cloned corals.
Coral reefs are basically the rainforest of the ocean.
About 25% of the oceans fish depend on healthy coral reefs.
We humans also need them.
In fact,
more than half a billion people depend on reefs for food, income and protection.
But our reefs are dying.
We've lost more than half of the world's coral since the 1950s.
There seems to be hope though.
Microfragmented
corals could slow down or even reverse the loss of corals around the world.
Since they can reportedly grow 25 to 50 times faster than the normal rate.
So I want to know: is micro fragmenting an easy process?
Can we clone all corals?
And can it be scaled up enough to restore reefs around the world?
Let's find out! On this episode of Can it Save the Planet.
I'm going to talk to Dr.
David Bond and his daughter, Dee Dee, of Plant a Million Corals,
to learn how to clone corals, their efforts to restore dying reefs,
and ultimately find out if cloning corals can save the planet.
I believe that corals like the poor polar bear in the Arctic
are the first organisms showing the stress from climate change.
Presented by Honda.
Along with the Arctic ice melting and the increase in historic droughts
You've probably seen many headlines about the coral reefs dying
due to rising temperatures.
For many people, it's out of sight, out of mind.
Since we don't all live in a coastal area.
But as I mentioned, they are dying.
Climate change isn't the only enemy that corals are battling pollution.
Habitat destruction and overfishing are also big threats,
and it should come as no surprise that us humans are at the heart of the problem.
Scientists estimate that by 20, 30, 90% of the world's
coral reefs will be threatened if we don't take action.
Thankfully, there are organizations and people like Dr.
David Vaughan and his daughter
working to restore these valuable reefs and achieve their goal
of taking certain species off the endangered list in under a decade.
But how exactly do you create a colony of corals from tiny pieces of just one?
I'm here in Key West to find out
if they walked
into the Plant a Million Corals facility and spoke to David.
I couldn't help but feel hope that the solution to restoring reefs could work.
David has cloned and planted iHub 3000 corals
since he accidentally broke a coral inside regrow in 2006.
He calls it his Eureka mistake.
I had been working on one of the first test
tube corals from sexual reproduction that had gotten
three years old up to about this size and I was disappointed.
It was too slow.
I moved them to a tank and in the process I broke one into a number of pieces.
What happened
is they grew back to that same size in weeks instead of months or years.
So I took a scalpel like any good scientist, and started
the experiment over again.
David claims developing a mature coral head the size of a large pizza
would typically take 25 to 75 years.
But with their process, they're able to do it in just a couple of years.
If we take one coral the size of a pepperoni and we cut it into
tiny little pepperoni, six months later, they'll grow up to the same size.
And if we put them in a circle, like a medium size pizza,
they will grow back together and we'll have formed a 25
to 100 year old coral in literally two years. Wow.
How do you cut them? What kind of tools to use?
People have been making a specialty store to make coral jewelry.
We use the same store.
It's not rocket science, but since we make little rocks,
I like to call it rocket science.
And these aren't just any clones.
They are building an Olympic team of survivors.
We've lost half the world's corals because of climate change.
But they're half of the corals
that are still alive are resistant or resilient to today's conditions.
So we just need to make more of those.
So this is a good stopgap.
But can it be scaled as a solution?
David told me they originally face
some issues getting recognition in scientific journals,
as well as the proper permits to conduct micro fragmenting.
But they got over that hump.
We had to show people it
in front of their face, and once they see it, it's believing.
The second hurdle with scaling up is equipment.
But David and team are already solving that problem, too.
Those fiberglass tanks you see around,
they sometimes take six weeks to six months to get one.
We can take the corals in one tank and cut them into 20 pieces each
We now need 20 more tanks the next day.
We're solving some of that with a new tank design.
How do you measure if an ecosystem is thriving?
We now know to look at the fish, the sounds of the invertebrates
and all the other organisms, and if you start to see
the whole ecosystem build up, that's success.
David says at the rate in which they're growing,
they'll be able to grow 1 million corals annually beginning in late 20, 23.
A number of people have asked me, Why don't you wait till all the
pollutants, all the stressors are settled and then start planting?
And I asked them this question If you can tell me a date
that all the stressors are solved, including climate change.
I will wait for that date. No one can tell you that date.
So in the meantime, we're trying to keep a living reef existing.
So now that we know what the process
is, like, we're going to learn how to do it ourselves.
Dee Dee, thank you so much for having us.
So what's the process like?
So we're going to take this piece of coral and we're going to cut
it off of this plug
Now, what we do is we
take this one and make lots of other baby corals.
What do you think? You ready to cut a coral?
I'm ready to play surgeon.
Okay.
Keep your fingers out of the way of the sore.
That's not the content we want to produce here.
There you go.
Nice.
You just cloned the coral.
Okay, okay.
All right, so let me just put it in the water.
They're going to start to respond.
Just like if we got cut, we're going to bleed.
So make sure they're not getting covered
by anything so I can keep being a happy and healthy coral.
Now we're going to glue them. Yes.
So we put them on these plugs.
A little dollop of super glue.
Down in the water, they go,
and they'll grow together and not fight because they're all from the same
regional call.
They'll be like, Yeah, I know you I know you do.
You have to connect.
So I connect for we no game here, huh?
Well, that was easy.
Easier than cloning a tree, I'd say. All right.
I got finally.
So it's time to answer the big question.
Can cloning corals save the planet?
Before we get to our conclusion, I'd like to take a moment to thank Honda
for sponsoring this episode.
Honda's
vision for carbon neutrality by 2050 is what we call triple action to
00 emissions resource circulation and zero waste.
First part of zero emissions means no CO2 emitted in the making of our products.
That means Honda's facilities and all of our suppliers that also means
the biggest part of the 80% of CO2 emissions for
transportation are in the use of the vehicles in mobility.
So we'll procure clean energy for that resource.
Circulation means making new Hondas out of old Hondas, and that means zero waste.
Of course, cars have to be fun to drive to.
So we're really doing a balancing act of making sure our cars
have good performance, but also responsible for the environment.
My first Honda, I was a civic, and Civic has always been a hallmark
of fun to drive incredible packaging, good fuel efficiency and low emissions.
I currently have an S2000 that I love driving.
It always puts a smile on my face and either has my kids
giggling or squealing, depending how I'm driving.
We genuinely believe that our commitment to triple action
to zero will help change the industry and help change the world.
We helped democratize safety features for everyone years
ahead of the regulations on any of those safety features.
And we like being able to democratize clean energy,
democratize slow CO2 emissions by changing the playing field.
We're about 10% of the U.S. market.
We carry enough weight that we can change the equation for the whole industry.
Now back to the episode.
Now let's do a quick recap of what we've learned.
Number one, clean corals can grow 25 to 50 times faster than normal coral.
Number 2002 new coral can be grown in a very small area.
And number three, this process can be scaled up across the world.
So can cloning corals help save the planet?
Yes. Cloning corals can specifically help slow down or even reverse dying
coral reefs.
However, it's not a fix all solution.
We still have a lot of other things to fix.
If we even want these resilient corals to survive, like
reducing pollution, ending overfishing, and limiting fossil fuel consumption,
which reduces carbon emissions and therefore reduces ocean warming.
There are some skeptics that have concerns about scalability and species diversity
when it comes to diversity.
David says the avoid monocultures by having at least three to five
genetic strains for every species when fragmenting corals, it's important
to remember that they're also specifically cloning resilient corals.
So they'll survive changing ocean conditions.
As for this process being scalable, there are 11 case studies that
David has gathered in his book are showing that this can be scaled globally.
As for real challenges,
both David and say funding is always an issue to scale up their efforts,
but they've received support
from foundations and private individuals to further their coral growing mission.
They're even making transportable coral nurseries in a box
which they ship to other people and organizations around the world.
Now, if you'll excuse me,
I'm going to go take a look at the coral over there and see how far they've come.
I swear, I'm getting so much cute aggression from them.
Oh, baby,
this looks like an edible mushroom to be honest.
Yeah. No nibbling.