Kennedy Warne wrote about conservation in the
Seychelles in the March 2016 issue. David Doubilet
and Jennifer Hayes photographed sea creatures
at night for the October 2021 issue. All three are
veteran National Geographic contributors.other products. Thousands of Filipino families
have become seaweed ranchers.
In the islands of the Calamian Group, at the
northern tip of Palawan, people are learning
how to ranch sea cucumbers. I helped release
dozens of juveniles the size of my little finger
from net cages so they could free-range across
warm estuarine flats. In two months they will
reach the size of fat sausages. When dried, sea
cucumbers sell for more than $30 a pound, 10
times more than grouper.
THERE IS ABUNDANT EVIDENCE that reefs regen-
erate when human pressure is removed. The
preeminent dive site in the Philippines is
Tubbataha Reefs, a national park and UNESCO
World Heritage site in the center of the Sulu
Sea. Here I saw barrel sponges large enough for
a person to curl up inside. I watched confetti
clouds of fish—orange, purple, green, yellow—
floating above slender coral branches, while
gray reef sharks slept on coral sand beneath.
An octopus unspooled its arms and, with an
instantaneous color change from fawn to char-
coal, jetted away. Exceptional today, these reefs
were all but destroyed by blast fishing in the
1960s. Strict enforcement of no-take rules has
redeemed them.
But will they survive bleaching and other cli-
mate pressures? Most researchers think not. It
is projected that by 2050 more than 90 percent
of the Coral Triangle’s reefs will be critically
threatened by climate impacts. As reefs fail, food
insecurity in the region will become calamitous.
How will coastal dwellers survive?
The Philippines has stared into an apocalyp-
tic future of degraded reefs and depleted seas. It
has recognized the choice it has to make: Seize
the moment of change, or grasp the blade of
crisis. In the past four decades, communities
have made hard choices to forgo fishing every-
where for the ability to catch fish somewhere.
They have realized that visitors will pay to see
thriving reefs. They have become committed
guardians and stewards of an incomparable
ocean realm.
But these changes alone will not preserve the
reefs on which millions depend. Ocean warm-
ing is locked in. Ocean acidification is locked
in. Extreme weather is locked in. What will
local efforts avail in the face of intractable plan-
etary forces?
I ask coral reef biologist Wilfredo Licuanan, a
professor at Manila’s De La Salle University, what
reason he or anyone could have for optimism.
“We have to delay the inevitable long enough
for some glimmer of hope, some solution that
might come up that is not yet visible,” he says.
“I want to be able to at least look my students in
the eye and say, ‘I’m trying.’ I’m pessimistic, but
I’m trying. If I fail, I don’t give up. I try again.”
Yes, we keep trying. This is how we sustain
hope in a threatened world. jAN UNDERSEA SPLENDOR, UNDER STRESS 95