The world’s largest coral reef has a message for us

According to Dr Susan Gardner, Director of the Ecosystems Division at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the world’s largest coral reef has an important message for us and we should pay attention

As a student back in the 1980s, I travelled over 13,000 km from New York to the Solomon Islands to take a tropical marine biology course. Underwater, using scuba gear instead of desks and notebooks, was an opportunity to value the ecological cycles and interdependencies of species that rely on centuries-old reefs. It was one of those moments that set me on course for where I am today.

I was not surprised when scientists recently observed a 300-year-old coral colony in the Solomon Islands, so big it looked like a shipwreck that can be spotted from outer space. With about one billion polyps, it is possibly the world’s largest coral.

Though identified as one single organism, its existence is only made possible through cooperation. The flamboyant colours of corals are the result of an intimate collaboration between them and the algae that lives in their tissues. This delicate algae-coral symbiosis is essential to the coral’s survival.