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  • first of all to die just to dive for me since the beginning.

  • It waas best, I say, Yeah, I have to find the way to be more often here.

  • It's like to go and to see an action movie.

  • You see, the fish is a big school of fish is moving, and then you see the corals and you're there and you're breathing and you can witness it.

  • My name is Paula Rodriguez.

  • I'm a professor and researcher at the University of Guadalajara on a National Geographic Explorer.

  • My field of study are the coral reefs.

  • All the roofs that were studying belongs to the central Mexican Pacific.

  • What's corals, Plants, animals or rocks?

  • It's like it's Ah, two.

  • For one.

  • It's an animal because it belongs to the animal kingdom.

  • But this relation Siam Biotic with a microalgae, they provide them food for each other.

  • The microbiology gives them the color, So when you see a coral that's brown, it's because the microalgae is brown.

  • And if you see a pink, it's because the microalgae spink to study any coral reefs is interesting because they're like a sensors for everything.

  • As you will know, the ribs are declining That's because of the climate change you may know about the bleaching.

  • That's what happened on the Great Barrier Reef on Australia.

  • Bleaching happens when they lose that microbiology on that bleaching make us the dead off the corals.

  • If they are bleaching, that's a sign is because it's something happening on the sea on its something happening with the climate.

  • It's not the normal temperature that I usedto.

  • That's a stress condition.

  • If the conditions they don't go better, they will lose all the microbiology.

  • They will die eventually.

  • The ocean acidification is the change off the water chemistry way doing today Good.

  • Where the water becomes more acid on that cause a change off the pH on that causes stress.

  • The corals.

  • They will make sinner skeletons more fragile skeletons so that you're a kind of thunderstorms when they are more intense, can take the entire ecosystem.

  • Okay, this is very but it does that one with climate change.

  • The problem is that the stress events are becoming more intense and more frequent.

  • We're trying to figure out if the corals will make it or not.

  • These trips in Mexico are very interesting because they are more recile int and resistant that some other areas we have witnessed so we can see here the bleaching.

  • But also we have seen them recovery.

  • Some of them died, but most of them survive on for the next stress event.

  • They resist more on.

  • If they bleach, they die less.

  • So we're trying to understand why they have this resistance.

  • Most corals living crystal waters with temperatures always stable on Dhere, the central region off the Pacific.

  • In Mexico, the temperatures can go up and down for degrees in one day Celsius.

  • So that's not supposed to be the optimal for corals.

  • And here they live that every day, so they are already stress.

  • They live all the time by stress.

  • So when another stressful condition comes, they say, Well, yeah, it's bad.

  • We're going toe bleach, but they can cope.

  • We do coral restoration.

  • The restoration technique actually so basic at the sites where the coral are more resistant, on more resilient, and we're taking those fragments natural fragments.

  • Two sides nearby, the corals, the branching corals, they reproduced by fragmentation.

  • We look for the healthy fragments and then we look for a surface to put it with cable ties way said that there are fragments of opportunity.

  • If they find somewhere to attach, they will grow there.

  • What we're giving them is like an extra shot.

  • We monitored the healthy ribs and we're also monitoring the ribs that were restoring right.

  • Mhm.

  • It's very important for the tourism.

  • Thio, go and visit the ribs.

  • That's an important income.

  • If you're not careful, that can damage the corals on the rest of organisms.

  • Eventually, too many people makes ah huge damage.

  • The information that we are generating around all these trips there are helping for them.

  • Local managers toe make actions.

  • So the local people on the government, on us as a scientific approach way, work together to find a solution.

  • How can I still get people there to enjoy the place, but without losing it?

  • So we apply what it's called current capacity, that it's how many people can get there without damaging the site.

  • First, some people were angry like, Why are you closing the area?

  • We want to go there, but if you want to really enjoy the natural resources off them, you have to wait a little bit to the system to rest.

  • It wasn't too late.

  • We're going to do something to make this better on to make it last for you, your sons, your grandsons.

  • So we're trying to go one step of time.

  • So I think that's that's the best advice.

  • Don't look at the disaster.

  • Look at what mitigated disaster.

  • These animals, these ecosystems don't think about the hurricane.

  • Think about the beautiful coral reefs.

  • E trying not to lose their ability.

  • Thio get amazed.

first of all to die just to dive for me since the beginning.

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