Saudi prince funds coral reef survey

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It’s called the Living Oceans Foundation and it’s got a grand mission, not to mention a fabulously deep pocket to finance its work. Beginning next year, a crew of scientists shepherded by Capt. Philip G. Renaud will ply the oceans to take inventory of the world’s coral reefs. The idea is to assess the health of coral reefs and associated marine life to learn what might help them be more resilient to all that threatens their existence: overfishing, man-made pollution, super-heated water from global warming and increasingly acidified seawater from carbon dioxide absorbed from tailpipes and smokestacks.

The multinational team of scientists, under the banner ‘Scientists without Borders,’ is financed by Saudi Prince Khaled bin Sultan. Besides being a member of the royal family and fabulously rich, he’s a scuba diver who shares concern with marine scientists about the fate of the living oceans.

At the World Conservation Union (IUCN) meeting last October in Barcelona, he asked for countries with coral reefs to join with him and open their waters to these scientists. ‘We have had an enthusiastic response to this invitation,’ said Renaud. So far, he said, Australia, the Bahamas, Colombia, U.S. Virgin Islands, Fiji, Indonesia, Palau, Madagascar and others have sent letters of interest.

The team will begin its work in the Caribbean in spring 2010, and continue to circumnavigate the globe, Renaud said. But first, the scientists aboard the amazingly well-equipped research vessel will take a look at the Farasan Banks in the Red Sea. The last expedition of this kind, Renaud said, was by explorer Jacques Cousteau in 1951 aboard the Calypso.

This time, these scientists will arrive aboard a research vessel equipped with its own hyperbaric chamber and even a float plane.

-- Kenneth R. Weiss

Photo: Capt. Philip G. Renaud with sea turtle. Photo credit: Annalise Hagan, Cambridge University.

Photo: Recovering the seaplane at the ship’s stern. Photo credit: Capt. Philip G. Renaud, Living Oceans Foundation