Scientists Are Testing a Surprising Approach to Fighting Hunger in One of the Poorest Places on Earth

In southwest Madagascar, the collapse of coral reefs—due to overfishing, climate change, and poverty-driven migration—has devastated both marine ecosystems and the coastal communities that depend on them for food. Vox’s Benji Jones visits the Bay of Ranobe and finds that traditional conservation efforts have failed in Madagascar because they have ignored the communities’ need to fish—and make a living. Jones highlights a new approach, one that works with the local culture: an artificial reef project that restores habitat while creating more places to fish.

Building artificial reefs is simpler than it sounds: She and her collaborators sink massive chunks of limestone offshore, forming long underwater rows of rocks that are each about 57 meters. That’s roughly the length of a commercial airplane. They then “seed” those rocks with life using smaller constructions called autonomous reef monitoring structures (ARMS) that have spent several months accumulating corals, sponges, and other marine organisms on a natural reef. Those structures, made of stacked stone plates, are basically coral reef starter packs.