Response to “Rebutting the inclined analyses on the cost‐effectiveness and feasibility of coral reef restoration”

Bayraktarov, Elisa; Saunders, Megan I.; Mumby, Peter J.; Possingham, Hugh P.; Abdullah, Sabah; Lovelock, Catherine E.

doi:10.1002/eap.1583

Cited by 3 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…Lirman & Schopmeyer ; Hein et al ). While these two metrics are not (should not be) the sole measures of success (Bayraktarov et al , ; Hein et al ; Rinkevich ), growth and survival are the most easily adopted metrics especially where monitoring capability is limited. Based on these metrics, for any given resource outlay (infrastructure, personnel, and so on), the RRE of coral propagation can be broadly conceptualized by maximizing yield from increasing propagule growth and survival (Fig.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optimizing return‐on‐effort for coral nursery and outplanting practices to aid restoration of the Great Barrier Reef

Suggett

Camp

Edmondson

et al. 2019

Restoration Ecology

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Coral nursery and outplanting practices have grown in popularity worldwide for targeted restoration of degraded "high value" reef sites, and recovery of threatened taxa. Success of these practices is commonly gauged from coral propagule growth and survival, which fundamentally determines the return-on-effort (RRE) critical to the cost-effectiveness and viability of restoration programs. In many cases, RRE has been optimized from past successes and failures, which therefore presents a major challenge for locations such as the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) where no local history of restoration exists to guide best practice. In establishing the first multi-taxa coral nursery on the GBR (Opal Reef, February 2018), we constructed a novel scoring criterion from concurrent measurements of growth and survivorship to guide our relative RRE, including nursery propagule numbers (stock density). We initially retrieved RRE scores from a database of global restoration efforts to date (n = 246; 52 studies) to evaluate whether and how success commonly varied among coral taxa. We then retrieved RRE scores for Opal Reef using initial growth and survivorship data for six key coral taxa, to demonstrate that RRE scores were high for all taxa predominantly via high survivorship over winter. Repeated RRE scoring in summer is therefore needed to capture the full dynamic range of success where seasonal factors regulating growth versus survivorship differ. We discuss how RRE scoring can be easily adopted across restoration practices globally to standardize and benchmark success, but also as a tool to aid decision-making in optimizing future propagation (and outplanting) efforts.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optimizing return‐on‐effort for coral nursery and outplanting practices to aid restoration of the Great Barrier Reef

Suggett

Camp

Edmondson

et al. 2019

Restoration Ecology

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show abstract

“…Second, it understands restoration as a process in which time is important at (a) the project level (e.g. the designing, planning, and monitoring of a restoration project [37][38][39], including the involvement of stakeholders to initiate a project [1,40]), and (b) the biological level (in terms of life cycles, return/rebuild of abiotic and biotic functions, replacement/introduction of structure (e.g. replanting key structural species or providing alternative structures), e.g., [41]).…”

Section: Restoration Concepts and Terminology: A Spectrum Of Human Inmentioning

confidence: 99%

Governing marine ecosystem restoration: the role of discourses and uncertainties

et al. 2018

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Governing marine environments has evolved from dominant interests in exploitation, allocation, conservation, and protection to restoration. Compared to terrestrial and freshwater environments, restoration of and in marine ecosystems presents a new mode of intervention with both technical and governance challenges. This paper aims to enhance understanding of the important factors at play in governing marine ecosystem restoration. Discourses of marine ecosystem restoration are an important factor which shape how the restoration activity is governed, as discourses structure how actors and coalitions define problems and their approaches to solutions. The article produces a conceptual model of the discourses of marine ecosystem restoration, built on two dimensions: (1) the degree of human intervention and (2) motivations for restoration. Together, these dimensions create four broad restoration discourses: "Putting Nature First," "Bringing Nature Back," "Helping Nature support Humans," and "Building with Nature." Moreover, marine ecosystem restoration is confronted with different forms of uncertainty, such as incomplete knowledge, unpredictability, and ambiguity, which must be managed by actors participating in restoration initiatives. The article's overall contribution is the synthesis of these components, which illuminates the specific governance challenges under various circumstances.

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“…Further, meaningful long‐term recovery is often jeopardized by high fragment mortality, poor location or suitability of nonreef habitat to regrow corals, or the continuation of activities that degraded the reef in the first place (Edwards & Clark ). While considerable advances have been made in the last decade in technology for reef restoration and rehabilitation (Bayraktarov et al , ; Rinkevich ), current metrics and incentives tend to favor the costly deployment of high numbers of small coral fragments with little long‐term monitoring (European Coral Reef Symposium ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rebuilding coral reefs: success (and failure) 16 years after low‐cost, low‐tech restoration

Fox

Harris

Darling

et al. 2019

Restoration Ecology

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Calls for coral reef restoration are increasing amidst continued declines, yet we know little about long-term outcomes and conditions that lead to successful coral recovery. Here, we report on one of the longest monitoring studies following 16 years of large-scale, "low-tech" experimental reef rehabilitation on rubble fields created by chronic blast fishing in Komodo National Park, Indonesia. After blast fishing had stopped, in the absence of rehabilitation, hard coral cover in rubble fields remained about 3% from 1999 to 2016, but on rehabilitation treatments, cover increased from 0% in 2002 to 44.5% (±21.9% SD) in 2016. Coral cover varied among sites and treatments (ranging from <5 to >80% in 2016) in patterns that may reflect current strength and turbidity. Our results demonstrate that low-tech substrate stabilization can facilitate natural coral recruitment and growth. We conclude that relatively low-cost methods can deliver sustained rehabilitation of hard coral cover and that long-term monitoring should be incorporated more widely in restoration activities to inform return on investment.

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Response to “Rebutting the inclined analyses on the cost‐effectiveness and feasibility of coral reef restoration”

Cited by 3 publications

References 46 publications

Optimizing return‐on‐effort for coral nursery and outplanting practices to aid restoration of the Great Barrier Reef

Optimizing return‐on‐effort for coral nursery and outplanting practices to aid restoration of the Great Barrier Reef

Governing marine ecosystem restoration: the role of discourses and uncertainties

Rebuilding coral reefs: success (and failure) 16 years after low‐cost, low‐tech restoration

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