Volunteers help regenerate damaged reefs at Maunalua Bay

Restore with Resilience, a new initiative to regenerate the damaged coral reefs of Maunalua Bay, provides community volunteers with hands-on learning as they conduct integral scientific research.

“The biggest threat corals face right now is warming water events caused by the ocean absorbing heat from greenhouse gas emissions,” said Kira Hughes, program manager for the Coral Resilience Lab of the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, a core partner in the project with Malama Maunalua, Kuleana Coral Restoration, the state Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Division of Aquatic Resources, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Funders include the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and Paul G. Allen Family Foundation.

Warming waters lead to bleaching, when corals lose their symbiotic algae, turn white and often die, Hughes said. The project aims to identify corals that have, through natural genetic diversity, become more resistant to bleaching, and then “outplant” them back in the ocean to produce more resilient reefs.

Coral Resilience Lab also has projects underway at reefs offshore of the Daniel K. Inouye International Airport runways and in Kaneohe Bay, but “the Maunalua Bay site is really exciting because it is the first-ever coral restoration project in Hawaii to include the community,” Hughes said.

She added everyone is welcome to volunteer, and nobody except the coral has to get wet.

“What’s special is we’re doing this with pop-up tanks holding corals on the land, which allows everyone to have access — you don’t have to know how to swim or dive,” Hughes said. Volunteers have ranged from 5 to 80 years old.

No corals are removed from reefs. Members of HIMB and Kuleana Coral Restoration collect loose “corals of opportunity, fragments bigger than tennis balls that were dislodged from the reef by waves, storms or human impacts such as ship groundings or anchoring.”

Some as big as basketballs, they tumble around the sea floor and would otherwise die.

They are placed in an offshore nursery in Maunalua Bay and brought ashore for community volunteers to help select and prepare fragments for testing and replanting, said Doug Harper, executive director of Malama Maunalua, which organizes the events.

The public participation has two stages:

First, volunteers “help scientifically assess the coral by determining color and species,” Harper said. “They photograph them, tag the coral heads, and take two small samples off each one that are stress tested in HIMB’s labs for warming survivability.”

The focus is on four species of leading reef-building coral: Porites lobata (lobe coral), Porites compressa (finger coral), Pocillopora meandrina (cauliflower coral), and Montipora capitata (rice coral).

In the second phase, once it’s determined which pieces survive, scientists find the parent coral heads in the nursery and bring them ashore to be fragmented into plantable pieces by volunteers. The fragments are returned to the nursery to be eventually outplanted by divers, Harper said.

Outplanting is projected to start early next year, Hughes said.

“A lot of the reef in Maunalua Bay is pretty damaged or just not even there anymore, but we placed the coral nursery table next to a beautiful, high functioning reef,” she said.

Corals of opportunity were spliced and tagged by volunteers at Maunalua Beach Park July 31 and are now undergoing temperature stress tests at HIMB, as are fragments taken from Kaneohe Bay, Hughes said. In the airport project, corals were outplanted about a year ago, and survival rates so far are high.

The next Maunalua Bay volunteer opportunity will be Aug. 14 at Hawaii Kai Towne Centre, but volunteer spots already are full. Restore with Resilience also will host a public event from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. that day featuring informational and activity booths and refreshments for sale by many conservation organization partners.

The next volunteer event is scheduled for Sept. 18; spots are limited and online sign-up is required. To register and for more information, visit restorewithresilience.org.

“You can make native species seed bombs to help with forest restoration, or limu lei to help with algae restoration,” Harper said. “It’s a big undertaking in the spirit of laulima, many hands make light work, and there’s really strong community interest.”

HIMB is looking forward to using the Maunalua project in other restoration efforts across the state, Hughes said.