Titouan Bernicot ➜ Defender of the Reef
photo Cristina Mittermeier
Titouan Bernicot discovered at age 16 that the beautiful and vital corals surrounding his island home of Mo'orea were dying. Taking it upon himself to restore the reef, he founded the nonprofit Coral Gardeners. Here he tells his story.
“For all the young kids out there who want to start something, you just need to be passionate. Find a project that drives you. Take a sheet of white paper, write down a few ideas, and start telling your story to others — the rest will follow.”
“Now imagine this reef, so varied and multicolored, fading to white and breaking apart. Imagine it is trying to send you a message — a cry for help. When I was sixteen, this is what happened to me. My friends and I had saved up enough money to buy our first boat, a little boat made of aluminum. We took her out on the water, surfboards in tow, excited about our newfound freedom. But when we got to the surf spot, we came face-to-face with the most bizarre sight: under our feet was a mass of corals that had lost their color. We jumped into the sea to investigate. When you touched the corals, they turned to dust. We were all thinking, “What’s going on here?” We were shocked; it was the first time any of us had seen these white blemishes on our reef.
We returned home, and did our research on the Internet. We asked scientists questions. We learned that the corals were turning white, or bleaching, because of rising ocean temperatures — they were dying. I didn’t know before that corals are actually alive; they are a living organism made up of tiny marine invertebrates called polyps. As our planet heats up, and water temperatures in the ocean rise, the polyps become stressed — just like humans do if our environment becomes hostile. This causes them to expel the algae that gives them their color, and they become ghosts of their former selves.
Scientists tell us that coral reefs could be the first ecosystems to disappear from our planet. If we do not take action in the next 10 years to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, stop pollution and overfishing, and find better ways to restore them, all corals could be beyond saving. I could not believe it when I read that we have already lost more than a third of all reefs.”
photo Cristina Mittermeier