When one thinks of a farm, very rarely does the idea of sea coral come to mind. Yet, it was a unique idea that Gator Halpern and Sam Teicher had in mind when they decided to launch Coral Vita in Freeport, Grand Bahama. The two men met and became friends at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, where they both received Master of Environmental Management degrees. Together, they helped to start the Social and Environmental Entrepreneurship Club and were awarded Yale's first-ever Green Innovation Fellowship.
Their love for the ocean inspired them to come up with an idea to solve global coral reef degradation.
In May 2019, Gator and Sam launched Coral Vita, a commercial land-based coral farm. Located In Freeport, Grand Bahama, the unique farm cultivates 24 different types of indigenous coral, with innovative techniques that speed up growth by 50 percent and make the coral more resistant to rising temperatures and acidity.
"More than 50 percent of the world's reefs are already dead and 90 percent are likely to disappear by 2050, with profound impacts on our marine eco-systems," said Sam Teicher, on the company's website. "At Coral Vita, we are creating a global network of high-tech coral farms that can sustain our world's coral reefs despite the threats they face. Our vision is to produce billions of corals from our farms each year in order to maintain these magical ecosystems for generations to come.”
Coral Vita, a winner of the inaugural environmental 'Earthshot Prize', creates high-tech coral farms that incorporate breakthrough methods to restore reefs in the most effective way possible. Coral Vita thereby works to provide valuable solutions to issues of the climate crisis.
Coral Vita's land-based farms not only supply corals for restoration projects, but also function as education centers for local communities as well as eco-tourism attractions. They can also scale to make a significant ecological difference, with a single farm able to grow millions of resilient corals for distribution around a region.
In addition to creating jobs for local Bahamians, the project also helps raise awareness. Visitors to the farm can learn more about the impor tance of protecting the oceans, as well as adopt their own piece of coral and plant coral with the Coral Vita team.
The partners, while they work to restore coral, strongly urge responsible parties to limit greenhouse gas emissions, reduce pollution and overfishing and take other meaningful steps to eliminate threats to environmental health - these necessary actions, they suggest, ultimately impact humanity's well-being and prosperity.
Coral Vita improves the livelihoods of those who depend on coral and aspires to enable a new generation to protect these reefs that will sustain their communities and nations well into the future. As a mission-driven company, Coral Vita is committed to reinvesting the majority of its profits into sustaining coral reefs.
Looking to the future, Coral Vita is keen to duplicate this farming model to reach all of the oceans’ coral reefs.