Enric Sala’s expedition to Kiribati, a coastal island nation, explores the evolution of the coral reefs in the South Pacific Ocean

The goal is to use those lessons to protect and restore others that aren’t as lucky. Working mainly in the Pacific island nation of Palau, Palumbi and his partners have been studying the warming of the ocean, trying to figure out how some corals thrive in warm waters. The secret lies in their genes. The resilience of a reef, he says, “is in the diversity of species, and the genetic diversity of the individuals that are there.” His team has tested 400 different coral and found many that are heat- resistant.

But even transplanting thousands of these healthy and upgraded corals onto damaged reefs will not be enough to save entire ecosystems, Foster says. “We need some way of deploying corals at scale.” It looks like a job for some machines.

About 50% of the world’s population depends on the corals for their health, though they may not know it. With climate change threatening coral’s survival, the goal of Enric Sala might have seemed impossible.

“We wanted to get into a time machine, go back hundreds of years and actually see a coral reef like they used to be everywhere, before we started exploiting them and polluting them and killing them all over the world,” Sala said.

The goal was, in essence, made possible during an expedition that Sala led in 2009 with National Geographic Society. The team traveled to a corner of the South Pacific Ocean to see if the vibrant and virtually untouched reefs there held any clues to bringing damaged reefs in other parts of the ocean back to health.

The coral was thriving on the bottom. It was, like, crystal-clear, blue, turquoise water, schools of silver jacks. And then the corals, pastels, oranges and beiges — it was so beautiful. It was like an impressionist painting when he first saw the thriving reefs.

His team presented their findings to officials in the island country of Kiribati. The Kiribati government took steps to protect their waters, but between 2015 and 2016 record levels of warming decimated half the coral reefs they had been studying.

They lost hope for the coral reefs’ health after hearing about the increase in temperature. The study kept going and they went for another dive last year. Sala jumped in without any gear, expecting to find a lot.

It has an abundance of fish that is off the charts. So they were eating all the algae that would smother the dead coral skeletons, and make it impossible for the corals to come back, which is what happens in other places like the Caribbean,” Sala explained.

“So if countries want a future for the fisheries, they need to manage their fisheries in a more responsible way around areas that are set aside to help regenerate the rest of the ocean,” Sala said.

The First Coral Maker: A Dome-Shaped Coral Maker with Six Plugs for Transporting Live Coral fragments to and from the Reef

In the Great Barrier Reef, for instance, coral growth has slowed in recent decades, partly because during heat waves the corals expel the tiny algae that live inside their tissues and provide them with nutrients, causing them to bleach. Bleached corals are not dead but are more at risk of starvation and disease, and the loss of coral reefs has a devastating impact on the thousands of fish, crabsc and other marine animals that rely on them for shelter and food.

The first prototype of the Coral Maker skeleton is dome-shaped and has six plugs where live coral fragments can be placed. The skeleton design takes inspiration from nature: Many species such as brain corals grow in a dome shape, while branching or plate corals grow upward from a solid base. Foster says that there are challenges with dome-shaped skeletons. They aren’t as easy to manufacture as something with a flat surface, and they are not as easy to pack on a pallet. Foster is hoping that the masonry machinery can soon produce thousands of pieces a day for a few dollars, so he is tinkering with the design. The process could then be replicated in other factories.