Save the Reefs, Save the Oceans: Kinjo Koji / Coral Farmer

"Direct Talk"

Our guest today is coral farmer Kinjo Koji.

One effect of climate change is warming oceans,

which has led to the bleaching and destruction of coral reefs.

As coral rapidly disappears from our planet,

Kinjo has taken a stand to protect the reefs.

He grows coral in aquariums like this.

Then he places it in the sea.

It's exceptionally difficult to get farmed coral to thrive in the wild,

but Kinjo has managed it.

These days he's a leading authority on reef restoration,

but at one time Kinjo was struggling under a mountain of debt.

Kinjo shares more about his restoration work

and his insatiable love for coral.

Save the Reefs, Save the Oceans

When I was a kid, I thought the ocean here was beautiful.

But when I talked to older people, to adults,

they said it used to be even more beautiful.

You used to be able to catch swordfish here.

Lots of stories like that.

I want future generations to look back and say,

things are better than they were.

Here's where we started to rebuild.

I want my generation to be the one that starts turning things around.

The islands of Okinawa sit at the southern end of Japan.

Colorful fish fill the beautiful seas in this tropical paradise.

However, in recent years,

the waters of Okinawa have fallen into crisis.

Global warming is causing the coral reefs to die off.

In fact, more than half of the coral in the entire world is at risk.

A quarter of all marine life depends on reefs for survival.

The mass death of coral could well affect the food chain

in ways that ultimately harm humanity.

For over 20 years,

Kinjo has worked on the restoration of coral reefs.

In artificial ponds like this,

he has bred and farmed more than 120 species.

To date, he has transplanted 150,000 pieces of coral

to the seabed and helped them grow there.

Corals are animals, and so they produce eggs.

This means my job is getting them to spawn,

fertilize those eggs, and multiply.

That said, corals are a collection of small units.

You can break one into fragments, and those fragments will grow.

Using this "cloning" property, we increase by dividing.

After undertaking this cloning process at his farm,

Kinjo transplants the coral into the seabed and tries to get it to spawn.

The goal is to have the coral grow and develop naturally.

Planting coral in the sea is pointless

if the coral itself can't grow and thrive.

My approach is to help the reef grow on its own.

In 2005,

Kinjo succeeded in getting transplanted coral to spawn in the ocean.

He's had similar success every year since.

When I go in the water, I can see all the little particles.

It feels like floating in space might feel

with all these planets streaming past you.

Kinjo was born in Okinawa in 1970.

His father left when he was young.

His mother raised him alone.

We were a typical poor family, I guess.

No father around.

I think I was lonely without a dad,

and I got really interested in animals.

I had a bunch of pets.

The first time I saw a coral reef, I was amazed.

I had never seen a place so full of life.

It had a huge impact on me.

After finishing high school, Kinjo started his own business.

He owned restaurants and shops, five in all.

Still a big fan of coral, he installed aquariums in his establishments

and kept a coral collection of his own.

I wanted people to have that relaxing feeling of floating in a reef,

so I put in the tanks.

I changed the water every day and took good care of them,

and the coral began to grow.

I thought that expanding my number of stores and gaining prestige

was the way to become a successful person.

But my mom saw this, and she told me,

being a man isn't about whether you're rich or poor.

It's about how you live, and what you leave behind.

That's the only true measure of a man.

She said this to me.

At the time I rejected her words,

but they stuck in the back of my mind.

Then, one day in 1998,

Kinjo looked out at the ocean and noticed something odd.

I could see that all of this coral had turned white.

I went diving to get a better look

and realized that this meant the coral was dead.

The scientific reason this happened was El Nino,

but to me it seemed as if this paradise, this soothing heaven,

had gone from high-definition color to black and white.

I saw it all around me.

Coral farming had been a hobby of Kinjo's,

but now he would turn it into his full-time job.

He sold off all of his businesses.

Doing coral meant giving up my entire income.

Nothing was coming in.

Very tough.

When I told my friends I was going to be a full-time coral farmer,

on the surface they were supportive,

but underneath they really thought I was crazy.

Despite the general skepticism,

the coral in Kinjo's tanks ended up thriving.

But when he tried to plant the coral in the ocean,

he ran up against the local fisheries association.

The fisherman saw coral as an obstacle.

It tears up their nets and blocks their way.

Coral gets in the way of their fishing.

The only option was to win them over.

I told them how much the fish depend on the coral reefs.

Eventually they agreed to help, saying,

"Who else but us fishermen can help save the sea?"

The coral farming itself was going smoothly,

but tougher trials lay ahead.

More coral meant bigger tanks to hold them.

The more coral I had, the more debt I racked up.

Eventually, I owed something like 80 million yen.

I was trapped.

I thought about rolling over and dying,

but my wife said,

"We'll sell the house if we have to.

You can't give up on your work."

Her words really touched me.

I wasn't making money, but I considered it a real job,

a profession even though I wasn't earning much.

She saw it in the same light,

that it was a profession I shouldn't give up on.

Despite the struggle,

Kinjo had a goal he was absolutely determined to accomplish.

Transplanting coral in the ocean,

and getting it to spawn.

A professor had gathered the data

showing that in the seas around Okinawa,

new coral was not budding.

He published a paper on this phenomenon.

I realized it was crucial that we create a supply of new coral.

But some scientists believed it was impossible

to get farmed coral to thrive in the wild.

They were saying that even if I managed to plant the coral,

it wouldn't produce eggs,

that artificial coral couldn't generate new life on its own.

Nevertheless, in 2003,

Kinjo placed farmed coral in the sea,

and it continued to grow.

In 2005, the moment he had been waiting for arrived.

So many times I thought, today is the day,

but there'd be nothing.

So I prayed to the ocean, please, let them spawn.

And that day I was ready to go home,

but I took one more look. And then I saw it.

Tiny eggs in the mouths of the coral.

All the challenges up to that point flooded into my mind.

I started sobbing.

Coral is alive and delicate,

which is why scientists were skeptical

that farmed coral would spawn in the wild.

How did Kinjo succeed?

Scientists think of coral as research samples.

They take it into the ocean,

and at this point it's already so damaged,

it's definitely going to die.

Whereas I care for the coral.

During the transportation, the transplantation, and so on,

I make sure to plant undamaged coral.

That said, the ocean is a brutal place.

Even lovingly cultivated coral has a hard time growing there.

In the ocean, water temperature can change rapidly

depending on the season or weather.

It's a harsh environment.

So at his farm, Kinjo does not use any equipment

to regulate water temperature.

He raises his coral in a natural water temperature

with the hope of making the coral hardier.

Building on his success at getting farmed coral to spawn in the wild,

Kinjo rented a 2,500 square meter plot of land.

Here he has created a coral breeding facility

called "Coral Farm."

They offer tours to the public,

which include viewings of coral spawning.

The idea is to get more people interested in coral reefs and the ocean.

The facility also has a vast artificial pond.

More than 120 coral species are being cultivated in these waters.

Ordinary people can symbolically "purchase" a piece of coral

and have it planted in the sea.

Kinjo's continued hard work has led to some unexpected discoveries.

We noticed an interesting phenomenon.

Tiny coral will grow out of the base of dead coral.

When we find coral like this,

we make sure to preserve it.

Regular coral bleaches at 31 degrees Celsius,

but this coral doesn't bleach at all.

Even at 32 degrees, it's not turning white.

That really surprised us.

Kinjo discovered a miraculous type of coral

resistant to higher temperatures.

He's given samples to a research institute

where they are being studied in detail.

He's also providing expert guidance to coral farmers around the world.

Indonesia, Taiwan, China, Monaco,

and other places where coral reefs are in trouble

have called on Kinjo for on-site advice.

Nature speaks to how the region's people have interacted with it.

Here in Okinawa,

I'm interacting with nature in a new way by planting coral.

My hope is that people everywhere

take care of the nature around them.

By building places that we really care about,

and creating relationships with living things

where we really care for them, we'll make the Earth

a much more comfortable place for humans to live.

That's how I see it.

That's the legacy I hope we can leave for future generations.

(Do you have any words to live by?)

"Adaptability."

I learned this from the coral.

It adapts to the situation it finds itself in.

That's just how things work in nature.

Think about climate change today.

Our environment is changing so quickly, it's disorienting.

Nevertheless, it's important for the future of our planet

that we all get a firsthand understanding of the situation we find ourselves in,

and adapt appropriately based on that knowledge.

And so, adaptability will always be a crucial part of my life.