ONNA, OKINAWA PREF. \u2013 From \u201cheat wave simulators\u201d to ecological bootcamps, scientists and conservationists are trying ways to revive and reinforce the famous coral reefs off Okinawa Prefecture, decimated by climate-driven bleaching two summers ago.<\/p>\n
The subtropical\u00a0region boasts some of the world\u2019s most biodiverse hubs of normally multicolored coral, but a 2024 marine heat wave created \u201cgraveyards\u201d of ghostly pale or sickly brown organisms.<\/p>\n
With the world\u2019s oceans the hottest on record in June, and a major El Nino predicted this year, experts fear that 2026 could be even worse for the colonies of polyps and the rich variety of marine life that calls them home.<\/p>\n
On land, extreme heat has similarly scorched Japan, sending thousands to the hospital.<\/p>\n
In recent weeks though the ocean around Okinawa has been mercifully cooled by typhoons scooping up deep-sea water as they tear across the Pacific.<\/p>\n
But Timothy Ravasi, a local marine scientist, warned against complacency.<\/p>\n
If not this year, \u201cit\u2019s almost 100% that soon in Okinawa, all around the world, we will have another mass bleaching event,\u201d said Ravasi, a professor at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University. \u201cJust like a bomb, it will explode.\u201d<\/p>\n
That makes his lab\u2019s ongoing work with its \u201cheat wave simulator\u201d \u2014 which he says is one of only two systems in the world \u2014 a race against time.<\/p>\n
There, rows of whirring white tanks filled with seawater host creatures like coral, giant clams and clownfish in what are meticulously controlled to resemble natural marine environments.<\/p>\n
By manipulating each tank\u2019s temperature and pH levels, scientists can simulate future heat waves and induce coral bleaching to see how fish and other organisms adapt.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we don\u2019t understand what climate change, ocean warming or acidification does to coral ecosystems, there is a chance we\u2019re going to lose them,\u201d Ravasi said.<\/p>\n
Okinawa Prefecture, a popular resort destination of many islands with turquoise seas, relies on tourism for over 80% of its economy.<\/p>\n
But hotel construction, combined with overfishing and pollution, is compounding threats already posed by climate to coral.<\/p>\n
For Ravasi, the biggest challenge lies in \u201cjust convincing the stakeholders, government and politicians that climate change is happening, and we need to stop it immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n
He suggests they potentially downsize tourism or urbanization to protect coral \u2014 a \u201cdifficult political question\u201d for those who want to keep Okinawa\u2019s economy thriving.<\/p>\n
But \u201cwe have enough evidence,\u201d he said, \u201cthat climate change is already pushing this ecosystem to limits.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite covering only 0.1% of the Earth\u2019s surface, coral reefs are home to roughly a quarter of the world\u2019s marine fish species.<\/p>\n
The coastal village of Onna \u2014 home to the Okinawa science institute \u2014 has been spearheading efforts since 1999 to breed corals and transplant them into the sea.<\/p>\n
Skeptics initially saw the cloning as \u201ctaboo\u201d disruptions of nature, Shoichi Ikeno, head of local diving company Lagoon, said.<\/p>\n
DNA analysis, however, later detected minimal ecological impacts.<\/p>\n
The pushback against human involvement similarly dogged Koji Kinjo\u2019s 2009 opening of an \u201cartificial sea\u201d that he built from scratch in the village of Yomitan.<\/p>\n
At this rainforest-like indoor farm, where creatures such as coral, tropical fish and sea cucumbers inhabit different aquariums, Kinjo bred \u201cmiracle coral\u201d with extra resistance to warmer water.<\/p>\n
The feat followed trial and error that initially saw him mollycoddle corals in stress-free environments, but those easily perished in the ocean once transplanted.<\/p>\n
He eventually succeeded by exposing corals to strong UV rays and other stressors to create extremely resilient organisms that even survived the 2024 bleaching unscathed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can say with absolute certainty that to raise creatures able to survive nature\u2019s harshness, they must be toughened up while growing up,\u201d Kinjo, 56, said.<\/p>\n
The artificiality of all this, however, has pitted him against traditionalists who believe in the ocean\u2019s ability to self-heal.<\/p>\n
These detractors, he said, \u201chave no idea how hopelessly serious the crisis has become\u201d for Okinawa\u2019s coral.<\/p>\n
Kinjo says that reefs flanking his seaside farm consist entirely of corals he cultivated, with their natural peers \u201cno longer able to keep up with a tremendous increase in stress\u201d in the anthropogenically polluted ocean.<\/p>\n
Sooner or later, he believes \u201ccorals will die out without intervention.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no restoring the sea to what it used to be,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s why my approach is to create a biodiverse place that can adapt to the coming era.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ONNA, OKINAWA PREF. \u2013 From \u201cheat wave simulators\u201d to ecological bootcamps, scientists and conservationists are trying ways to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77092,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2574,28688,1729,8,33,162,481],"class_list":["post-77091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-japan","tag-climate-change","tag-coral","tag-environment","tag-japan","tag-nihon","tag-okinawa","tag-tourism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77091\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}