Marine researchers who have visited the Flower Garden Banks describe it with awe in their voices. “When you look out, it can be almost disorienting because there’s so much coral,” said Michelle Johnston, superintendent of the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary…scientists are racing to study and preserve this remarkable coral reef in the unlikeliest of places. “We have these magical underwater places, [and yet they are] completely surrounded by the oil and gas industry,” Johnston said.
The world’s coral reefs are more plentiful than previously thought. High-resolution satellite maps show that coral reefs cover an area of ocean larger than New Mexico,” reported Bloomberg News. That’s about twice the size of some prior estimates.
Coral are not the only living things thriving in proximity to oil rigs. Fish species are rebounding off the coast of California due to their young finding a sanctuary in abandoned oil rigs:
According to a 2014 study…the rigs were some of the most “productive” ocean habitats in the world, a term that refers to biomass – or number of fish and other creatures and how much space they take up – per unit area. The research showed the rigs to be about 27 times more productive than the natural rocky reefs in California….Subsequent studies showed that some species of rockfish produce 10 to 100 times more eggs and larvae at these platforms than at natural reefs. That’s partly because many big adult fish are being caught by fishers at natural rocky reefs, but less so at rigs, where they have more protection.
In some cases, the platforms are actually important to the populations of fish as a whole. In 2000, Love found that in the slow-growing rockfish bocaccio, a commercially important but overfished species, the rigs were home to one-fifth of the average number of juvenile fish that survive each year….
Nature is doing well in other ways, too. Most of the world’s forests are growing. Florida’s manatees have rebounded to their highest number in years. Sea turtles are proliferating, with sea turtle nests tripling in Florida.
The amount of vegetation on the Earth has increased every year for the past 30 years. An Asian antelope declared extinct in Bangladesh is making a comeback.
Last year, a baby beaver was born in London, the first beaver birth there in 400 years. And carnivorous plants were reintroduced to English wetlands.
A dog recently discovered a species of mole long thought to be extinct, De Winton’s golden mole. Crocodiles are flourishing in Australia, where they once verged on extinction.
Scientists recently developed genetically-modified bananas to keep the principal variety of banana from being wiped out by a dangerous blight. They also engineered bionic silkworms that spin fibers six times stronger than Kevlar.
A mutant tomato could save harvests around the world.
