They're just the backbone of the whole tropical ecosystem.

And if they disappear, we're in a lot of trouble.

My name's Ken Nedimyer, I'm the founder

of the Coral Restoration Foundation.

The reason I'm doing this,

I was, I'd grown up diving, spent a lot of time in the water.

One, two, three.

(splashing)

I've basically watched the coral reefs dying.

As the reefs died, the fish didn't come back,

and I realized, I'm tired of watching it die,

I need to do something about it.

And so I developed this whole idea of growing corals

in an offshore nursery and replanting them on the reef.

- [Man] And so you're kind of like a farmer?

- I'm a farmer. (laughing)

Yeah, we grow corals just like a farm.

There's a good time of year to plant,

and there's a harvest time.

And we have five offshore nurseries in the Keys.

Each tree can hold 100

corals.

We start with little fragments that we collect.

And after six to nine months, maybe a year,

that fragment has turned into a colony

that might have 100 centimeters of growth on it.

We cut that off, and then we plant it out on the reef.

So we just harvested some corals,

and we're gonna take 'em out to Pickles Reef

right now and plant them.

We've got a couple thousand of 'em out there

that we've already planted and we're gonna add some more.

It is a bit of gardening when you put the corals

back out on the reef you're saying,

“Ah, I think they would look nice over there,

and that would look nice over there;” and,

some of it's based on what used to be there

and what should be there, and that's how we do our planting.

We planted 20,000 already this year.

We'll plant 25,000 next year.

Those corals will probably spawn next year.

Part of the long-range goal is to get the corals

reproducing on their own.

I'm excited every time I get in the water,

whether I'm going to work in the nursery

or whether I'm planting corals or just

looking for new areas to plant.

A lot of people said, “Oh you can never do that,

it'll never work, can't do it on a big enough scale;”

and I think I've proven that it can be done.

And if we can train enough people and teach enough people

in other places, I think we can really see

a significant turnaround.

Another day, another coral.

(mellow piano)