THE BOAT CHUGGED out into the sleek mention a turtle or a herd of spotted waters of Grace Bay to a site called rays or a shark swimming through. I remember thinking that Boneyard. Oh, I loved that place! I sat As we motored out, I remember these waters were the most on the upper deck of the boat and thinking that these waters were remembered the last time we were the most deeply alive place I had deeply alive place I had there, just the week before. It was a ever experienced. ever seen series of deep sand channels, densely The boat slowed. One of the populated with finger and staghorn divemasters used a long pole to moor than the week before. I turned horizontal . The finger coral was shaped like on to the buoy. We geared up. as I sank and looked down at the site protruding stubby thumbs and the “OK kiddo, get in the water,” the that was now about 12 metres below. , like the large antlers of divemaster said, as he checked my “Where am I?” I thought. “This a deer – hence its name, Boneyard. gear. I put the heel of my hand to my can’t be!” Boneyard teemed with life. Each mask to keep it in place, looked at the What I saw was almost cluster of coral colonies ranged from horizon and took one long step off the unrecognisable. The sand channels 20 to 100 “thumbs” and “staghorns”, edge of the back of the boat, and into were there, but there was hardly a sign densely packed together. It was hard that world I so deeply cherished. of life. Everywhere I turned, the coral sometimes to even see the coral I exhaled and sank softly into the was white and brown, with green-brown mounds, because the schools of water. I closed my eyes for a second or growing over it. There were a few hundreds of yellow grunts were so two, just to feel the water river along thick, they only parted as you came my body. LEFT Divers drop into BELOW The schools very close to them. And those schools “Warm,” I mused. I opened my eyes a very different world of fish like these were punctuated by hundreds of and looked at my dive computer, it was when they dive the jacks depend on a Boneyard today healthy ecosystem, parrotfish and damselfish and hamlets nearly 28 degrees Celsius (82 degrees underpinned by a and grouper and trumpetfish. Not to Fahrenheit), three degrees warmer diverse coral

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STRIPPED TO THE BONE In 2012, Liz Cunningham witnessed a dramatic event in the Turks and Caicos Islands in less than a period of a week. That month the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) documented record-breaking temperature highs for the North Atlantic and Caribbean Sea. This excerpt from Cunningham’s award-winning book, Ocean Country, describes what she saw.

Text by Liz Cunningham Images by Alain Feulvarch STRIPPED TO THE BONE

small clusters of fish in places and an occasional lone fish, looking 42 out of place. 43 The coral had bleached. ABOVE Atlantic I paused at a bed of staghorn coral. spadefish once beckoned divers into The week before it had been filled with the thriving this so many half-inch juvenile parrotfish site was famous for and blue chromis that the water RIGHT The vibrant appeared to be filled with blue and colours of these corals white snow. Small multicoloured fish are lent by heat- had darted furtively and mischievously, sensitive algae that live in the corals' tissues sometimes chasing each other, or and provide them nibbling off a piece of coral, nestled in with energy the safety of its tight matrix – a dazzling display of light created by a multitude of life forms. The sense of the coral’s ailing was gets pumped into rivers and oceans Now it was barren and whitish- palpable. We swam through a landscape daily. And coral bleaching was yet one grey, except for one singular oval- of millions upon millions of tiny, near- more indicator that climate change was shaped blue tang that nibbled on microscopic animals, ailing and dead, on the brink of showing the true fury of the algae overgrowth. unable to support the multitude of life destruction it was capable of. We kept swimming, searching for forms it once did. Several days later I showed video a spot that might not be so damaged. Before getting back on the boat, footage of the reef to Marsha Pardee, “How many miles did this stretch for?” I I keep looking down to the reef. I still a marine ecologist, and John Walch, asked myself. As I moved my fins slowly couldn’t quite believe it. How could President of the Reef Ball Foundation. through the dense water, I felt as if I was this happen in less than a week’s time? Marsha and John explained that swimming through the ashen remnants It was incomprehensible. the temperature change wasn’t the of a bombed-out cathedral. Coral reefs were in terrible danger only culprit, that the coral had been Each spot I remembered once from anchoring damage, overfishing, weakened for years by sediment in the deeply alive and illuminated with life divers kicking delicate coral heads water from dredging and construction, was now devoid of the mosaic of colour that take years to regrow, and nutrient and from nutrient runoff. The and life. Only a white-brown monotone runoff, that miserable hodge-podge of temperature change was the straw that armature remained, covered with algae. sewage, fertilisers, and detergents that broke the camel’s back. STRIPPED TO THE BONE SHENZHEN MUSIC FESTIVAL INTERNATIONAL DIVE PARTY EVERY NIGHT UNTIL LATE & WATERSPORT EXPO FEATURING ASIA'S TOP DJS

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They explained it wasn’t just said, “Of course I do!” But in no way part of that ever-growing movement bleaching that I saw, but coral disease would I have understood it the way I did to save the life of this Earth and make www.adexchina.cn and algae overgrowth. The tattered and after seeing that bleached , it more just. Perhaps we could look frayed sea fans and the not-completely which went on for miles and miles back a century from now and see that white suffered from that and miles. we squeezed through that eye in the tongue-twisting phenomenon that But there was something else that needle – as the efforts 100 years ago to scientists call eutrophication. This I hadn’t understood as deeply as I do establish national parks in the US did means that algae that’s been feasting now: how much can be done. Among and became a catalyst for nearly 100 44 on sewage and fertilisers and other other things, to save coral reefs we other countries to do the same. 45 chemicals is choking the coral. It need to end overfishing, curb plastic The thread that passes through the had been having a degrading effect pollution and nutrient runoff. We need needle is the collective chain of efforts on the reef for decades, but with the to take decisive action on climate – each of us living as if our actions and temperature spike it reached a tipping change and vastly expand the number our voices matter. AD point and became widespread. of marine protected areas, in an effort Bleaching happens when the parallel to the effort to set aside vast coral, reacting to environmental tracks of land for national parks 100 stresses, expels the algae. The coral years ago in the US. Today only about ABOVE If divers want gets its nourishment from the algae’s two percent of the ocean is protected. to see charismatic SEPTEMBER 8–10 ability to make energy from light – We need to protect at least 30 to creatures like sharks, photosynthesis. And it gets its beautiful 50 percent of the ocean to restore we need to work to preserve the green and rose and yellow hues from its health. ecosystems they the algae’s colour. So, when it expels People often ask me, “Is there any rely on the algae, it loses its colour and turns hope left for the seas?” I tell them that white. It can survive for a while without if there is still a chance there is still OCEAN17 TOUR the algae, but not too long and not if hope. One of the greatest dangers is to the coral disease and algae overgrowth mistake a narrow margin of possibility became predominant. for lack of hope. ASIA DIVE EXPO (ADEX 2017 Book Festival) The night after I had witnessed the There’s an eye in the needle we bleaching, I was just stunned. My view need to pass through. There are so Liz Cunningham’s mission is to be a voice for the FILM/IMAGE/BOOK/ART & MUSIC FESTIVAL life of the seas and the people who are working to of the world had changed massively. many things we need to do. We can see save them, to inspire and empower others to join I’d heard so many individuals recount this two ways: There are so many things the effort to save our seas and forge a sustainable future. She writes and speaks to audiences about that at some point they get to a place to do, so there is little hope. Or we can ocean conservation and the traits we need to be where they understand that the Earth set our sights this way: There are so effective stewards of our seas and life on this planet — among others, courage, an engaged, active hope, is ill like an ailing body. And what many things we can do and each of us and the ability to work together to find solutions. ails it? What limits its ability to renew has a role to play. She is the author of the award-winning book, Ocean Country: One Woman’s Voyage from Peril to Hope in itself? Humankind. I cast my lot with the can-do crowd Her Quest to Save the Seas, with a foreword by Carl If you’d asked me the day before, – some of the most creative, dedicated Safina, and Talking Politics: Choosing the President in the Television Age. Learn more about her work at 73% Investment Hong Kong Limited “Do you understand this?” I would have and loving people I have ever met, www.lizcunningham.net Photo by Yue Hongjun Photography