Heat Resistant Coral

P2P co-founder and chair Dr. Stone has led a 20-year research program in the Phoenix Islands resulting in the establishment of the Phoenix Islands Protected Area and the discovery of heat-resistant corals.  Our plan is to create nurseries to grow seedlings and assess the safe transplanting of these corals to regions that are rapidly deteriorating because they do not have heat resistance built into their genetic code.

We believe the reason corals from Kiribati have this unique quality is that they have naturally experienced oscillations from El Nino phenomena, unique to the western South Pacific, for millennia and through natural Darwinian evolution can withstand extreme swings in temperature.

We have made progress by selecting the first site for nurseries. This site is ideal because it is relatively easy to access via the International airport on Tarawa and there is a village nearby, Bauriki, where we can empower and employ the local population to participate. We will commence planting the first nurseries when travel becomes possible.