{"id":28252,"date":"2025-09-02T13:49:44","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T18:49:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cbf-trubudget.com\/catastrophic-coral-bleaching-in-the-caribbean-now-is-the-time-for-a-regional-approach-to-scale-up-coral-restoration\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T00:00:21","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T04:00:21","slug":"catastrophic-coral-bleaching-in-the-caribbean-now-is-the-time-for-a-regional-approach-to-scale-up-coral-restoration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/caribbeanbiodiversityfund.org\/es\/catastrophic-coral-bleaching-in-the-caribbean-now-is-the-time-for-a-regional-approach-to-scale-up-coral-restoration\/","title":{"rendered":"Blanqueamiento catastr\u00f3fico de corales en el Caribe: ahora es el momento de un enfoque regional para ampliar la restauraci\u00f3n de corales"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">En los \u00faltimos dos a\u00f1os, el cambio clim\u00e1tico ha tenido efectos devastadores en los arrecifes de coral de todo el mundo. En el Caribe, en particular en las Islas de Barlovento, las temperaturas del mar alcanzaron las m\u00e1s altas jam\u00e1s registradas, superando los 31 \u00b0C. El nivel de estr\u00e9s t\u00e9rmico, medido en semanas de calentamiento por grados, alcanz\u00f3 los 25, lo que, seg\u00fan la NOAA, se traduce en un riesgo de mortalidad casi total por blanqueamiento de los corales.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Our restoration teams in St Lucia and St Vincent and Grenadines have been doing extensive surveys looking for elkhorn and staghorn survivors \u2013 and it\u2019s not looking good.&nbsp; The sea has been too rough to survey the windward coasts, so we hope we will find some there when it is calmer. In our nursery in Saint Lucia, we have some surviving elkhorn and staghorn genotypes because we moved them into deeper water, but almost all our outplants and source colonies have died.&nbsp; To make matters worse, last year\u2019s coral bleaching comes on the heels of the terrible SCTLD coral disease, Category 5 Hurricane Beryl, and the severe bleaching of 2023.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image wp-image-15160 size-full\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/caribbeanbiodiversityfund.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Photo_2__Some_Elkhorn_colony_as_Photo_1_in_Tobago_-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-15160\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Granja Beerland Ryall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Marine scientists across the region are monitoring the situation with shock and almost despair. Some are asking whether coral reefs have passed a tipping point where recovery will not be possible. A regional group of marine biologists supported by the Caribbean Biodiversity Fund have recently set up the Caribbean Coral Health Forum to discuss what the next steps should be to conserve and restore coral reefs.&nbsp; It is clear that we need to re-evaluate our restoration strategy and consider all options.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The main aim of coral restoration is to assist corals to adapt to a warmer world. To do this, we need to speed up natural selection by helping the more resilient corals grow and reproduce with a high level of genetic diversity.&nbsp; The more genetically diverse a population is, the more resilient it is. &nbsp; A simple rule is to have fragments from at least 35 individual corals taken from different locations to ensure that over 95% of the genetic diversity (allelic diversity) of the population is captured.&nbsp; The problem facing coral restoration programmes in the Eastern Caribbean is that it is becoming increasingly difficult to find that many surviving colonies within one country. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">More importantly we now need to do what many scientists are recommending and start moving corals from hot areas to cooler areas \u2013 it is called assisted migration.&nbsp; The Meso-American Reef Complex has shallow waters that are on average 1\u00b0C degree warmer than the Eastern Caribbean during the summer months. The corals there have adapted to warmer conditions and some have even survived 34C!<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Para la supervivencia de los arrecifes de coral del Caribe, es crucial que cient\u00edficos y legisladores colaboren para facilitar el movimiento de corales a trav\u00e9s de las fronteras nacionales y as\u00ed ayudar a establecer viveros regionales de bancos gen\u00e9ticos de coral en cada pa\u00eds. Los cient\u00edficos deben desarrollar protocolos para minimizar los riesgos de transmisi\u00f3n de enfermedades. Ha llegado el momento de pensar con originalidad, y no tenemos mucho tiempo.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em><span style=\"font-family: tahoma, sans-serif;\">Las opiniones expresadas en estos art\u00edculos son s\u00f3lo para fines informativos y no representan la posici\u00f3n oficial del Fondo de Biodiversidad del Caribe o sus socios.<\/span><\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over the past two years, climate change has had devastating effects on coral reefs around the world. In the Caribbean, particularly the Windward Islands, sea temperatures were the hottest ever [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28253,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_tribe_blocks_recurrence_rules":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_description":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_exclusions":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[351],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cchf","entry"],"acf":[],"authors":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/caribbeanbiodiversityfund.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/caribbeanbiodiversityfund.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/caribbeanbiodiversityfund.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caribbeanbiodiversityfund.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caribbeanbiodiversityfund.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/caribbeanbiodiversityfund.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28252\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caribbeanbiodiversityfund.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/caribbeanbiodiversityfund.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caribbeanbiodiversityfund.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caribbeanbiodiversityfund.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}