{"id":220,"date":"2017-02-16T12:14:18","date_gmt":"2017-02-16T12:14:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oceansofbiodiversity.wordpress.com\/?p=220"},"modified":"2024-12-06T11:53:04","modified_gmt":"2024-12-06T10:53:04","slug":"restoring-coral-reef-ecosystems-at-aitutaki-cook-islands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/oceansofbiodiversity\/2017\/02\/16\/restoring-coral-reef-ecosystems-at-aitutaki-cook-islands\/","title":{"rendered":"Restoring coral reef ecosystems at Aitutaki, Cook Islands"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dr <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cwaters.net\/\">Charley Waters<\/a>, an inspiring scientist in Aitutaki, Cook Islands, has started a local initiative to foster community engagement in restoring and protecting their marine environment called\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.aitutakireefkeepers.com\/\">Aitutaki Reef Keepers<\/a>.\u00a0The island community, including <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aitutakireefkeepers.com\/your-gallery\">local schools<\/a>, are closely involved.<br \/>\nSchool children and visitors actively help by fixing small branches of living coral to cement blocks and wedging the blocks into the reef in the lagoon: as seen on this <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=K7HvDIrInN4\">video<\/a>. The initiative thus actively fosters community engagement in protecting the island\u2019s coral ecosystem.<br \/>\nRelated work involves restoring giant clam populations on which Charley conducted his PhD (see <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=F6WJPOux5R0&amp;t=173s\">video<\/a>). He also has a wonderful collection of <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/-SQ8UwV3n8g\">photographs<\/a> showcasing the beauty of the clams.<br \/>\nThe University of Auckland has undergraduate scholarships for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.auckland.ac.nz\/en\/study\/scholarships-and-awards\/scholarship-types\/undergraduate-scholarships\/entry-level-and-first-year-scholarships\/maori-academic-excellence-scholarships.html\">Maori<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.auckland.ac.nz\/en\/study\/scholarships-and-awards\/scholarship-types\/undergraduate-scholarships\/entry-level-and-first-year-scholarships\/pacific-academic-excellence-scholarships.html\">Pacific Island<\/a> students, and at postgraduate level for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.auckland.ac.nz\/en\/for\/current-students\/cs-scholarships-and-awards\/cs-search-for-scholarships-and-awards\/the-university-of-auckland-maori-postgraduate-scholarships-829-all-new.html\">Maori<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.auckland.ac.nz\/en\/for\/current-students\/cs-scholarships-and-awards\/cs-search-for-scholarships-and-awards\/the-university-of-auckland-pacific-postgraduate-scholarships-827-all-new.html\">Pacific Island<\/a>ers.<br \/>\nKatherine Kelly and Mark Costello joined Charley for a week, helped with placing coral in the lagoon, set out sites for future coral replanting, discussed methods and opportunities for reef health monitoring, and explored the lagoon environment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dr Charley Waters, an inspiring scientist in Aitutaki, Cook Islands, has started a local initiative to foster community engagement in restoring and protecting their marine environment called\u00a0Aitutaki Reef Keepers.\u00a0The island community, including local schools, are closely involved. School children and visitors actively help by fixing small branches of living coral to cement blocks and wedging [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":96,"featured_media":280,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,26],"tags":[],"coauthors":[21],"class_list":["post-220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-other-interesting-posts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/oceansofbiodiversity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/oceansofbiodiversity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/oceansofbiodiversity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/oceansofbiodiversity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/96"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/oceansofbiodiversity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/oceansofbiodiversity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2166,"href":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/oceansofbiodiversity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220\/revisions\/2166"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/oceansofbiodiversity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/oceansofbiodiversity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/oceansofbiodiversity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/oceansofbiodiversity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/site.nord.no\/oceansofbiodiversity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}