In a new Impact Report, founder and CEO Titouan Bernicot noted that 2022 was a pivotal year for Coral Gardeners, as his boyhood dream had transitioned to one of the most ambitious journeys in ocean conservation.
Involved in this new chapter, Rolex began supporting Coral Gardeners last year, with the partnership under its Perpetual Planet Initiative.
The Swiss watchmaker has supported pioneering explorers for nearly a century, and has moved from championing exploration for the sake of discovery to protecting the planet.
This engagement was reinforced by the launch of the Perpetual Planet Initiative in 2019, with an initial focus on the Rolex Awards for Enterprise, as well as longstanding partnerships with Mission Blue founded by legendary oceanographer Sylvia Earle and the National Geographic Society on understanding climate change.
Threatened by increased ocean heat, pollution and human activities, coral reefs are among the most biodiverse and valuable ecosystems.
Coral Gardeners is presenting a concrete solution to an overwhelming environmental challenge -- half of the world's reefs have already been lost and they may disappear completely by 2050 without action.
Its mission is to revolutionise ocean conservation and create a global movement to save the world's coral reefs through active restoration, awareness activities and innovative solutions.
"It's an honour to be joining the legacy of people from the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative, following the path of inspiring scientists and explorers like Sylvia Earle. It makes me want to get into the water and do more," said Bernicot, who founded Coral Gardeners in 2017.
Bernicot grew up on a small atoll in French Polynesia, where his parents cultivated Tahitian pearls. From a young age he was fascinated by the underwater world, learning to swim before he could walk.
The dazzling blue waters off the island of Mo'orea and the coral reefs were a playground for Bernicot and his friends, who spent as much time as possible free-diving and surfing.
In 2015, aged 16, he noticed the underwater landscape changing, the corals beneath him were turning white, and he made it his mission to understand and fight coral bleaching.
Coral Gardeners started as a small bunch of "ocean kids", who witnessed the rapid degradation of their local reef break in Mo'orea, only to realise the extent of this global crisis.
The restoration involves growing heat-resilient corals in nurseries until they are ready to be out-planted on the reef.
Bernicot and his team use the latest techniques and technologies to continuously monitor the health and growth of the corals.
"We are not all marine biologists but we have spent thousands of hours under the surface. We see things. We observe things. We learn things," he said.
The "underwater gardeners" seek advice from experts and scientists on reef restoration methods. They clip fragments of coral to cultivate in nurseries over 12-18 months, before "gluing" them back on to nearby reefs using marine cement.
The corals are grown in six nursery sites scattered across French Polynesia. Today, they have reached their initial goal of 30,000 corals planted, doubling the number of plantings in the preceding five years.
Bernicot can already see the tangible impact of the gardening on the reef, as colours and life return.
Extending beyond French Polynesia, Coral Gardeners has the largest social media presence of any reef conservation organisation. Their videos and images have reached over 200 million people in just over five years, with over half-a-million followers on their Instagram account.
The stunning imagery and informative videos are geared towards a young audience, looking to the future of conservation, and hoping to spark passions around ocean protection.
Its CG Labs explore the potential of technology in more widely sharing and mining information.
"The idea of CG Labs is to develop tomorrow's solutions for scientists and coral reef restoration practitioners. It's so important to use modern tools to speed up what we're doing. I would love to connect conservation projects together just the same the way that the oceans are connected," Bernicot explained.
The development of a new platform, ReefOS, will connect the reef to smartphones and computers to be able to monitor the work they are doing more efficiently.
Their engineers are continually working together to optimise and scale up coral reef conservation in an open-source, collaborative and effective way.
The artificial intelligence system is a combination of hardware and software that documents every aspect of the growing process. This includes identifying fish species repopulating the reef through underwater cameras; 3D mapping of reefs and out-plant sites to improve monitoring; and developing an app to pool data across restoration sites.
This technology will aid in their global expansion. In 2023, Coral Gardeners will be working with community leaders, fishermen and surfers in Fiji, to build a new reef restoration and conservation programme in the South Pacific Ocean.
