‘It’s not too late’: Surfers come together to help preserve coral reef

(CNN) – As a sport, surfing is fully aware of the necessity of preserving the oceans.

Over the last three years, the World Surf League, the sport’s biggest organization, has partnered with Coral Gardeners, a group dedicated to preserving and regenerating coral reefs.

Tahiti, an island formed from volcanoes in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean, is a paradise of lush mountains with a diverse ecosystem and marine life.

It’s also the location of the World Surf League’s Outerknown Tahiti Pro.

The Outer is considered the most dangerous wave in the world.

Tahitian professional surfer, Vahine Fierro, said riding the wave can be scary.

“But when you overcome that fear, you can get the best wave of your life out there,” she said.

Professional surfers Jack Robinson and Lakey Peterson agree.

“It’s a very, very powerful force of nature,” Peterson said. “It’s a wave; it’s like nothing you’ve ever seen before.”

This year’s surfing world champion Stephanie Gilmore said she thinks the wave should be considered the world’s eighth wonder.

“When you see this big wave, and you get to watch the surfers take off in the most critical sections and risk their lives for these barrels, it’s one of the most amazing things you could ever see in their lives,” she said.

But life in Tahiti is not as beautiful as what meets the eye. In the place of seemingly pure bliss, underneath the surface of some of the most crystal-clear waters in the world, the reef is dying. The perpetrator behind the threat is climate change. However, some people are fighting back.

The World Surf League partnered with Coral Gardeners in 2019. The organization is led by Titouan Bernicot, who is from Tahiti’s sister island Moorea.

Bernicot and his crew have dedicated their entire lives to saving the reef using a process called coral reef rehabilitation.

“At the moment, the coral reef conditions are not good; they are here on planet Earth for 400 million years, but in just three decades, we already lost 30 percent of our world’s coral reef,” Benricot said. “The scientists estimate that by 2050, 90 percent of the remaining ones could be condemned. So, it’s an emergency.”

Bernicot said reefs face other threats, including ocean acidification and human pressures like runoff in the water to farming chemicals.

“There are many reasons why the coral reefs are stressed, and the corals are bleaching and then dying, and it’s happening so fast,” he said.

Bernicot said he is worried about the loss of the reefs. He said the coral reefs help support marine and ocean life and act as the ocean’s “lungs.”

“If tomorrow we lose our coral reef system, we are going to lose the balance of our oceans, and that’s what regulates the temperature of the atmosphere, the air we all breathe,” he said.

Kaipo Guerrero, a former professional surfer, now works as an analyst and commentator for World Surf League. He said the rehabilitation program used to help save the coral reefs involves taking “super coral,” or coral that hasn’t succumbed to bleaching and the warming of the ocean’s waters, and using grafts of that coral to help more coral grow elsewhere.

Guerrero said there’s still time to save the coral reefs.

“We can bring back the reef,” he said. “We’re not too far gone. We can make a change right now, so it’s not too late.”