Coralclips - restoring reefs at scale

For decades, coral restoration was plagued by the immense time and resource investment required to plant even just a few corals into degraded reef areas. Traditional methods such a cementing and gluing corals, and the use of 'artificial reefs' as reef substrate, were not just difficult to apply at large scale, but very expensive too. Artificial reefs in particular have drawn rightful criticism as a lot of foreign material is being deployed into the ocean, and such materials are often left behind when the artificial reef fails.

These old woes were changed when a team of researchers and reef cruise operators invented the Coralclip©. Coralclips are made of orthopaedical pins, and decrease time and resource investment significantly. The amount of foreign material that is being introduced into the oceans is reduced to an insignificant minimum, making coralclips not just super-efficient, but also perhaps the most sustainable coral planting methods currently in use.

Coralclips© have been used in reef restoration projects in ten countries thus far. We are proud to have been the first (and only) coral restoration project in Malaysia to make use of this brilliant invention. In early 2021, we planted the first 300 coral fragments using the coral clips, with staggering efficiency. We are now intending to significantly upscale these numbers by planting up to 5,000 corals per year using the coralclips (in addition to other techniques). Based on our scientific site assessments, this could double the coral cover within just 3-5 years at the chosen restoration sites, considering that planted corals will grow and reproduce eventually.