Coral Reefs

I watched an eye-opening documentary on Netflix today, Chasing Coral, which highlights the issues faced by our coral reefs. These issues being caused by none other than climate change. A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem which should be thriving with life; however, as the seas warm up, it causes the coral to bleach then causing the polyps to eject their plant-like cells, causing them to lose their source of food, and eventually, this causes them to die. It is thought that within recent years, this has happened to half of the world's coral reefs. Two-thirds of one of the most well-known coral reefs, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, has died. Some scientists believe that by the end of the century, coral reefs will be completely extinct. (Blue Planet II, 2017). Our marine ecosystems are facing a possible collapse if nothing is done to stop these environmental issues. This major problem is being addressed in so many ways, art being one of them. Jason DeCaires Taylor, a sculptor, created his own artificial coral reefs after looking at the effects of global warming, pollution, overfishing, and ocean acidification, the impact of tourism and habitat loss. Initially, Taylor placed one sculpture, called “The Lost Correspondent,” off the coast of Grenada, where he quickly saw how it was quickly transformed by marine creatures, making it their own. This first sculpture then led to many more in an attempt to continue growing his artificial reefs. Taylor has created over 800 new coral habitats. The sculptures are created with a PH neutral marine cement for healthy and natural growth, that coral polyps can easily attach to and allow fish to congregate on a large scale. The marine creatures turn the sculptures into their own. Taylor stated that once the sculptures are submerged, they no longer belong to him, they belong to the ocean (Ted Talk, 2015). The pieces are never finished as they are continuously changing due to life forms constantly adding to the sculptures. Taylor now has a large range of underwater sculptures, his largest being 60 tonnes in Nassau, the Bahamas. The piece, titled “Ocean Atlas,” presents a young girl kneeling on the seafloor, holding up the ocean, like she has the weight of the ocean on her back. “The piece symbolizes the burden we are currently asking future generations to carry and the collective responsibility we have to prevent its collapse.” (deCaires Taylor, n.d.). This particularly spoke to me. We are a generation who seems to be blissfully living in ignorance. We all know that climate change is a major issue but that’s it. We hear about it but none of us act upon the information we hear, unfortunately.

Art is an important platform for raising awareness for the various environmental issues, offering a visual alongside the concept behind the work however this can also be seen as a fault in using art as a platform. Does everyone know about the concept behind the art or do they just focus on the visual aspect of it? The majority are most likely only looking at the art and not reading what the concept of the piece is. This is where media platforms play an important role in helping to raise awareness. Documentaries such as the BBC’s Blue Planet and Planet Earth are extremely important series which show the beauty of our Earth’s nature as well as discussing the current environmental issues. The first episode of Blue Planet II got over 14.1 million views, the most watched programme of 2017. (Ruddick, 2017). A programme like Blue Planet is educating millions with each episode, a significant opportunity to raise awareness about our world. There are so many documentaries at the tips of our fingertips that we can watch whenever we want, just like Chasing Coral. There are so many organisations that are doing what they can to help like the coral reef alliance and Reef check. There are celebrities like Dominique Provost-Chalkley who has set up an amazing community called "Start the Wave," fighting for positive change. If everyone were to do their bit, we could see an amazing change, a life-saving change. Simply educating yourself about the issues around us is the first, and what I believe to be the most important step.

Live Coral Vs Dead Coral