Just in from our friends and angels at Coralations....
Congratulations Todd Barber, creator of Reef Ball Artificial Reefs and the Reef Ball Foundation... CNN HERO ....also visit: http://edition.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflife/03/06/heroes.barber/ Todd helped CORALations to establish a Reef Ball distributorship in Puerto Rico which enabled us to lease the reef ball molds to the local Department of Natural and Environmental Resources for an experiment in pelagic habitat / fish aggregation off Fajardo in 1997. He also agreed to donate smaller molds to Antonio Ortiz and Austin Bowden Kirby for University of Puerto Rico coral transplant research almost a decade ago! photo: http://coralations.phanfare.com/show/external/123861/147435/6860711/file.jpg He recently came down when we requested his help to evaluate the dramatic impacts from one of the largest reef groundings in the waters of the United States, the oil tanker Magara off Guayanilla. This was the second (Sperchious was first) oil tanker to ground in off this area in less than six months, both captains failing to request pilot escorts. Agencies used the information we gathered at the site visit, but decided to engage a private contractor for the restoration. We plan an expedition back to see what was done. Let us know if you want to go in August of 2008....email: info@coralations.org Todd established a standard for artificial reef design that takes into account thousands of years of natural "lessons learned" (aka natural selection) as his design is modeled on natural stony reefs and constructed from limestone enhanced conctrete to survive for centuries. Although coral reef restoration always requires a specific site evaluation, we partnered with the Reef Balls for this region because Puerto Rico is in the center of the tropical storm, hurricane storm belt for the Caribbean. Here stability is a must. Socially, Puerto Rico knows concrete construction work. Reef Ball Projects in Puerto Rico can actually create jobs, which in economically depressed, traditionally underserved coastal communities is sometimes the only opportunity for local community engagement. It is an interesting thought... to create work to restore.. instead of to destroy coastal habitats, but we hope we are on our way in Puerto Rico. It is our opinion that meaningful community engagement in restoration of these most vulnerable ecosystems may represent a hope for the planet. Unfortunately most Government reef restoration funding proposals rarely require or value community engagement. If it weren't for Todd's passion, marketing skills and international approach, the world would certainly know much less than it does today about coral reef restoration… Way to go Todd! VISIT: http://www.reefball.comhttp://www.coralations.org/reef_restoration/index.htm
____________________ Life is short. Break the rules, Forgive quickly, Love truly, Laugh uncontrollably,
and never regret anything that made you smile!
