Gathering Coral For Replanting In O’ahu

Let’s take a closer look at how Kuleana Coral in partnership with Sheba and Sheba Hope Grows, helps to restore coral reefs here on O’ahu.

I was lucky enough to accompany Kuleana Coral on a dive gathering ‘corals of opportunity’ for replanting. ‘Corals of opportunity’ are large coral colonies that have broken off from the reef with a low chance of survival. These coral colonies break off for many reasons, including strong wave energy or from a boat anchor.

The corals gathered by the Kuleana team in this video are Porites lobata, commonly known as lobe coral. Lobe coral, like many Hawaiian corals, grow incredibly slowly. The coral colonies seen here reflect years of growth. Replanting these large, very old colonies can make a restoration effort more immediate and scalable.

With their basket full of these ‘corals of opportunity’, we returned to the boat to start the next step in the replanting process.

Stay tuned for next month’s post where we’ll help the Kuleana Coral team prepare these corals to be planted on the reef.

#Sheba #ShebaHopeGrows #KuleanaCoral