The Nature Conservancy in Hawaii

The Living Reef booklet

In celebration of the Hawai‘i International Year of the Reef (IYOR), a worldwide campaign to raise awareness about the value and importance of coral reefs and threats to their sustainability, we invite you to explore the world of Hawaii's extraordinary coral reefs.

The Living Reef booklet will be published this month as a special insert in The Honolulu Advertiser. An earlier version of The Living Reef was originally produced by The Nature Conservancy and the Hawai'i Department of Land and Natural Resources, with funding provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Thanks to NOAA and our generous co-sponsors —Mālama Hawai'i, Atlantis Submarines and the Hawai'i Tourism Authority — The Living Reef is now being brought to a much wider public, through the Advertiser's Newspapers In Education (NIE) program. In addition to being inserted into each copy of the April 16 issue of The Honolulu Advertiser, 20,000 copies of this special section will be distributed to more than 200 schools throughout Hawai'i.

The 24-page booklet showcases the incredible biological, economic, and cultural value of Hawaii’s own “rainforests of the sea.” It also warns of serious threats to our reefs – pollution, invasive species, over-fishing, and marine debris – and the resulting damage to coral reef ecosystems, including a precipitous 75% decline in nearshore fisheries over the last century.

The good news is that coral reefs are resilient. If we act in time, we can still protect this priceless natural asset. As The Living Reef shows, healthy reefs are in everyone’s best interest, for a living reef gives our islands life.

We hope this special publication will motivate you to take action to protect our precious living reefs – for today, more than ever, they need our help to survive. To learn more about Hawaii’s reefs, the IYOR-Hawai’i campaign, and the many ways in which you can help, go to iyor-hawaii.org.