Travelers are starting to help with coral replanting around the globe

Beautiful and fragile, coral reefs in tropical oceans worldwide are threatened by climate change, storms, and bleaching. Now travelers can help restore them by supporting coral replanting programs.

National Geographic Explorer Paola Rodríguez-Troncoso has worked on a Mexican program that sustainably replanted more than 6,000 coral fragments over six years. In this project, divers collect fragments from the ocean floor that have been knocked off reefs by storms or waves. Then they tether healthy pieces to the substrata of reefs at the same or nearby sites. It’s a process that can vary by location. For example, in some areas where reefs border lagoons, such as French Polynesia, the coral fragments are placed in underwater nurseries to recuperate before replanting.

(Read more about new efforts to save dying coral reefs.)