Supercorals for the oceans

Five years of existence, 572,000 followers on Instagram, renowned ambassadors and numerous donation campaigns. A well-established storytelling, a geography of the seabed scattered over incredible photographs with, in a black T-shirt, a team of employees and volunteers constantly under water. At the helm, Titouan Bernicot, in his 20s. The young entrepreneur, invited to the Young Summit again last year in Geneva, has a fresh sense of relaxation after returning from his lagoon expedition.

However, as he knows and repeats, the subject of corals is up to one of the biggest issues related to the climate emergency: because every year, coral stories bleach and disappear with them, a quarter of marine biodiversity, ocean organisms and symbiotic algae, allowing, among other things, 50% of the oxygen in the air that humans breathe. That is to say. So in the face of the ignorance of some and the inaction of others, it took one, then two, then three, and a few weeks later, the Coral Gardeners, translated as “coral gardeners” were born.

“I will talk about our great adventure, which for me began at the age of 16, when I first transplanted coral. That was the revelation and that's how I started my first little coral fa'a'apu underwater in the lagoon in front of my house.” Based in Moorea, a town in the north of Tahiti, the team was formed gradually.

In the space of five years, there are now around thirty of them, all very involved, with furiously contagious speeches and real skills on the resume. “I had done my prep school, business school, I went back to LVMH, then to Adidas. But despite sensational plans, I decided to resign because all this lacked meaning. I wanted to work for a concrete cause and use my expertise for the planet and the ocean,” explains Marie-Céline Piednoir, Communication and Awareness Manager at the organization. Like her, many of them have given up everything to put their professional skills at the service of a positive impact.

For the founder, who himself stopped his studies to fully embark on his project with his fishing and surfing friends, the observation is clear. “A lot of people told me that I didn't have enough knowledge and that therefore it couldn't work. So we worked like crazy, day and night. We surrounded ourselves with the right people... And we tried to see things a bit differently and put in place things that will pay off in the long run. Today, we are achieving some of the most advanced results in the world in the field of coral restoration, especially on supercorals.”

It must be said that located not far from the headquarters, is the Criobe. The mission of the laboratory, recognized worldwide for its research on coral reefs, is to study the origin and maintenance of biodiversity, chemical ecology, environmental chemistry, the characterization and biological activities of new metabolites as well as the functioning of the marine ecosystem.

“Coral reefs are facing dramatic regressions to such an extent that it is estimated that nearly 25% of coral reefs that have already disappeared in the last 20 years are estimated to be close to 25% and those that are in a critical situation to date are estimated at nearly 50%” explains Marie-Céline Piednoir. It is in this environmental context that research works. In order to better integrate the complexity of coral ecosystems, but also to better understand the processes of persistence of populations

In recent years, the association has created other underwater vegetable gardens. They now exist on the famous Tahiti surf spot in Teahupoo, and in the Tuamotu Islands, in Tikehau and Ahe. In these atolls, it is not the gardeners who maintain the nurseries, but fishermen and schoolchildren who are sensitized by the association. “It is very important to involve the locals, they are the ones who know the reefs best and who need them to live” continues Titouan Bernicot. The local economy is mainly based on fishing, which in turn depends on the proliferation of fish around the corals.