Why that Manhattan-sized raft of rocks you've heard about isn't going to save the Great Barrier Reef:
- to the currently depauperate reefs. While these pumice rocks may certainly provide habitat for a variety of ocean creatures, they are a fry cry away from facilitating the Great Barrier Reef's recovery.
While the pumice raft may bring corals to the Reef, they are most likely to be juvenile and will not be able to sufficiently replace the corals that we have lost recently.— corals that had been growing for decades to centuries perished in less than five years. No matter how many corals are transplanted from the pumice raft to the Reef, they will not be able to make up for the immense loss that has already occurred.
However, assuming that millions of organisms - including corals - are jettisoned from the pumice raft onto the Great Barrier Reef, there is no guarantee that they will thrive there and produce progeny. This is because the arrival of new sea life does not counteract the impacts to the Reef. Warming, changing seawater chemistry, poor water quality, seaside development projects, and overfishingBut, fundamentally, the idea that the vestiges of a volcanic eruption could"cure" the Great Barrier Reef of its problems abdicates humans of responsibility. The issues that the Reef is facing are complex and the direct product of human actions; we simply cannot expect that a single glorious act of nature will resolve them.
While a pumice raft replete with sea life may not heal the Great Barrier Reef, targeted actions that address the role humans have played in its demise probably will.
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