With a group of core partners, Arizona State University is creating a new $25 million collaboration to preserve and restore vitality to Hawaii's coral reefs and the health of its coastlines.
The community-based effort looks to fuse state-of-the-art science programs with the leadership and cultural knowledge of Hawaii’s community partners to enable coastal and reef sustainability for generations to come. Named ʻĀkoʻakoʻa (pronounced ah kō-a kō-a), the effort shares a dual meaning: “to assemble” and “coral.”
“For decades, our original program focused on diagnosing land and reef problems using high-tech satellite, airborne and field technologies,” said Greg Asner, director of ASU’s Center for Global Discovery and Conservation Science and a longtime resident of Hawaii. “The new program further expands this diagnostic work, but it focuses far more effort on interventions that support Hawaii’s communities, both coral and human, as one force.”
Read more at: Arizona State University
Photo Credit: ASU Global Airborne Observatory