The Guam Reef Restoration and Intervention Partnership is a non-profit organization created to revitalize Guam’s coral reefs by rehabilitating corals and recreating ecosystems that are associated with different coral species. 

The organization was established in 2019 through the University of Guam’s Marine Laboratory and is currently chaired by Laurie Raymundo, Ph.D., a professor of coral ecology. 

GRRIP members help rehabilitate corals by transporting corals that survived various bleaching periods into a nursery in order to propagate them; allowing the clippings to grow until they are ready for out-planting. 

According to Raymundo, the goal is to not only preserve coral species but monitor the recruitment of organisms that help create a stable reef system for fish and other marine life. 

Raymundo said agencies and organizations have recognized that reef restoration is one of the big focuses on Guam right now.

GRRIP partners with local agencies such as the Bureau of Statistics and Plans, Department of Agriculture, Guam Environmental Protection Agency and Underwater World to conduct coral surveys, nursery maintenance and out-planting projects throughout the island. 

Members of the partnering agencies that conduct these types of fieldwork all have biology and scuba diving backgrounds, as the work requires a great amount of skill level and can be intensive.

Trained divers from each partner agency assist during working days and at times use their own resources such as vehicles, boats and dive equipment. 

“This partnership has allowed us to upscale our operations beyond the capacity of the Marine Lab,” Raymundo said. 

But the conversation around coral restoration started back in 2013 when Guam faced major coral bleaching and disease outbreak events, which lasted all the way to 2017. During this five-year period, the island lost about 30 percent of its total coral population. 

According to Raymundo, one coral species, in particular, staghorn corals, saw significant damage. 

“In our first rapid assessment between 2013 and 2015 we lost about 50% of the staghorns,” Rayundo said. “We’re now looking at our data from 2013 to 2017 in detail, examining changes in the communities living in affected areas and losses in species.” 

Ashley Castro, GRRIP member, has been working in the coral nurseries for six months. 

“With Guam’s major bleaching events rebuilding the reef is vital to the health of our island and we can eventually recover the communities that we’ve lost,” Castro said. 

Castro’s focus is to add more diversity in the coral reef systems with the outplanting of staghorn corals. 

“The staghorn species, acropora microphthalmais, a rare coral that only grows in one area of Guam,” Castro said. “We hope we can incorporate it in other areas to further diversify the coral eco-system.”

Coral restoration is very experimental Raymundo said. 

“We never looked at it to this extent,” Raymundo said. “Those of us that have been monitoring corals for a while, kept getting told, ’it’s not possible.”

“Now that we’ve lost so much, the people that were saying it’s not possible are now saying, ‘this might be one of the only things that we can do,” Raymundo said. 

Claire Moreland-Ochoa has worked with GRRIP since September 2019, and has seen small improvements in the reef systems. 

“I have been able to observe the corals recruiting fish and invertebrates to make a once degraded reef site into a true reef community,” Moreland-Ochoa said. “My hope for the future is to outplant multiple species of coral to create a diverse reef eco-system.”

GRRIP was recently awarded grant funding that will allow for more out-planting within the next two years, covering four acres of reef area. 

Moreland-Ochoa, hopes to continue and expand coral restoration in Guam’s waters through surveying and outplanting. 

“This grant allows us to add more structure into the existing coral nurseries which expands our opportunities to grow more coral for restoration purposes,” said Moreland-Ochoa. 

“We’re going to keep trying and our efforts will be to some extent positive and successful,” Raymundo said.