Land-Based Propagation
Land-based propagation has become a critical tool in scaling-up efforts toward coral reef ecosystem restoration. This working group was formed to further the knowledge base, provide channels for communication, and ultimately, help to speed up the learning curve and restoration impact of land based nurseries. The ultimate goal is to increase the efficiency and scale of coral restoration by establishing self-sustaining, genetically diverse, sexually reproductive populations of key species of framework-building and threatened corals. The Coral Restoration Consortium steering committee and working group members have defined the following priorities for the group:
- Develop a recommendations manual for optimizing conditions, and as a tool for new operations
- Develop standards to be used in depositing species and genotypes into land based nurseries
- Standardize chain of title and health assessment protocols for outplanting
- Organize training workshops
- Advance techniques for land based sexual reproduction
- Develop legal, BMP, and risk management protocols for the transport of adult corals and cryopreserved gametes across geopolitical lines
What We’re Working On
- Addressing coral health screening protocols to certify lab-raised corals to be out plants onto reefs and scaling up efforts from 1,000s to 100,000s of corals.
- Creating a “how to” web-series of best practices for land-based methods.