Coral Reef Restoration Inspires "Voluntourism"

In the next few weeks, some springbreakers will forgo the "wild" life in Daytona and the Florida panhandle for undersea wildlife in the Keys. Ken Nedimyer has made volunteer vacations popular with his Coral Restoration Foundation.  The project is dedicated to rebuilding coral reefs and does so by farming coral off Florida's most southern coast.  Climate change, pollution, and overfishing have all contributed to the decline of corals which are tiny, stationary marine animals.  The corals spend about a year in an underwater nursery before being transplanted into the wild.

That passion led to Nedimyer starting the Coral Restoration Foundation, which has grown more than 25,000 staghorn and elkhorn corals in underwater nurseries. He and his staff of volunteers work three days a week maintaining the nurseries just off Key Largo. The nurseries cover more than an acre of the ocean floor. --CNN

The goal is to get them to reproduce on their own and repopulate an area where they no longer exist.  Once Nedimyer felt helpless, but now he see hope.  His is the largest underwater nursery in the Gulf and wider Caribbean.

Nedimyer and his Coral Restoration Foundation were recently spotlighted by CNN Heroes.