Moving fast to defend corals, in Puerto Rico and beyond

In August 2022, a sailboat ran aground on a coral reef off southwest Puerto Rico. A salvage company attempted to remove the boat, but the damaged vessel sunk to a lower section of reef dominated by mountainous star coral, a species listed as threatened under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.

The whole sailboat — including mast, sails and ropes — hovered just over the sea floor. The wreckage rose and fell with each wave, crushing the corals.

To prevent further damage to the reef, NFWF awarded an emergency grant under a new partnership with NOAA to help fund the vessel’s quick removal. The wreckage was removed just in the nick of time. On September 16, 2022, the eye of Hurricane Fiona crashed into the southwestern coast of Puerto Rico, bringing another round of destruction to an island still recovering from hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017.

“Had that vessel still been on the reef, wave action and storm surge from Hurricane Fiona would have drug it along, creating a path of destruction along those reefs,” said Jennifer Koss, director of NOAA’s Coral Reef Conservation Program. “This shows why speed and flexibility in funding are key to preparing for and responding to increasingly destructive natural disasters.”

After the storm passed, NFWF approved additional emergency funding in October 2022 to hire divers to save and reposition large, old and ecologically valuable coral structures that were knocked off the reef by the storm.

NFWF’s nimbleness in addressing urgent challenges represents a sweet spot for the Foundation’s efforts, especially when such actions are part of a larger, more comprehensive approach to conservation.

Such is the case with coral conservation in Puerto Rico and elsewhere, where NFWF continues to fund landscape-scale projects to reduce land-based pollution that damages coral reefs, build new coral nurseries to increase genetic diversity, repair reefs damaged by storms, and make entire coastlines more resilient.

In 2022, NFWF awarded $5.1 million through programs focused on conserving corals in Florida, Hawai‘i, Puerto Rico, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands.