Reefs of corals seldom recover from the ravages of dynamite fishing and cyanide. The explosion destroys the limestone platform that any new coral would need as a base. By the late 1990s, this is how things stood in Pemuteran, a little fishing village on Bali’s northwest coast. Years of harmful fishing practices had decimated local fish stocks, driven away the few tourists that used to visit to dive, and the bay's reefs resembled debris rather than live ecosystems. A local diving shop owner who had heard about an unusual restoration procedure got in touch with the two scientists who had developed it and asked them to attempt it in front of his shop.
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