Our friend Dr. David Vaughan, famed marine biologist partnered with Jacques Cousteau’s grandchildren in Plantamillioncorals.org perhaps put it best. Coral reefs–one Vaughan’s specialities when it comes to aquaculture–have huge clout for a creature few people understand. Coral are animal, vegetable, mineral–all in one; visible from space; vital to our survival. One billion humans rely on reefs for their survival.
Present on the earth for eons, they are the first 3d-printers as they patiently create vital reefs over millions of years with the calcium carbonate they exude, one layer at a time. Pictured below with one of Madco3d’s founding partners, Dan Bernard, Vaughan held forth on much arcane and practical wisdom regarding what he calls in his book, “The Secret Life of Coral: Sex, War and Rocks that Don’t Roll.”
Turns out the stunningly beautiful reefs many of us first saw in Jacques Cousteau documentaries are both tough and fragile; endangered and yet home to more biodiversity than a rain forest. Vaughan told Bernard that as few as 20-24 key coral species support literally thousands of other lifeforms. That if we saw our lawns, shrubbery and trees turning white the way coral does when it bleaches and dies, human awareness would be higher about this crisis.
Bleached coral. Higher ocean temperatures, ocean acidification and other factors are killing off reefs that are vital for human and many other species’ survival.
We are thankful for Dr. Vaughan’s advice on how to best design the 3d-printed sustainable reefs we print and his testing of our prints in the ocean by the Keys and providing some useful data.
Like him, we want to regenerate these vital reefs and your investment in Madco3d helps push this project forward, so that we can print local coral with local people in the hot-pockets of coral die-offs around the world.
Check out Plantamillioncorals.org and invest in Madco3d’s coral efforts (see more on our page) and if you’re adventurous and in the right part of the world, get involved in your local community’s coral restoration efforts.
3-dimensionally yours,
The Madco3d Team