By Perri Rappaport | Reef Restoration Technician
Thanks to your generous support, we’ve been able to expand our coral restoration efforts in meaningful ways — increasing our outplanting capacity, advancing our coral breeding program, and organizing a community-wide event that brought even more people into the heart of our mission.
We’re thrilled to share that we’ve successfully completed our outplanting project at Punt Vierkant! Over the course of multiple dive days, our dedicated team of staff and volunteers outplanted nearly 900 corals at this nursery site. Even more exciting, we’ve launched a brand-new restoration site at Petrie’s Pillar, where we’ve already restored more than 2,000 corals to the reef!
In a major milestone for coral restoration on Bonaire, RRFB observed grooved brain coral spawning during a night dive and successfully collected eggs and sperm from 14 colonies across four locations. From this, our team produced over 236,000 genetically unique coral larvae in a temporary land-based lab — a hopeful sign for the future, especially after two difficult years of widespread coral bleaching and Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD). With so many healthy coral colonies now scarce or too dispersed to reproduce naturally, this achievement marks a critical step forward.
On Sunday, June 1st, we also hosted our 7th annual ReeFiesta, bringing together more than 200 community members, including divers, snorkelers, dive shop instructors, RRFB staff, and sponsors, to celebrate World Reef Awareness Day. The day began with a series of guided coral restoration dives and snorkel tours across 13 nursery sites around Bonaire and Klein Bonaire, involving over 120 participants. Following a morning presentation on RRFB’s work and the importance of reef health, the celebration continued into the evening with food, drinks, a raffle, and coral-themed trivia — a perfect way to honor the ocean and the community working to protect it.
Thank you for being an essential part of this journey. With your continued support, we’re making real progress toward a healthier, more resilient reef ecosystem for Bonaire and beyond.
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