In the southern of the Okinawa chain of islands, divers are hard at work below the waves of the Sekisei Lagoon located in Japan. They have compressed air drills and are desperately trying to bring new life to one of Japans largest corals reefs. The Japanese government is spending a considerable amount of money to combat what has been previously been reported to be a 90% reduction of coral around the islands. The project is one of the largest restoration projects in the world and biologists hope to learn lessons so they can apply there efforts to other areas of the world that are being endanger of being killed off. The project is now in its fourth year and, so far, some 13,000 pieces of coral have been planted at a cost of nearly $2 million, Hajime Hirosawa, a preservation officer at the Environment Ministry who helps oversee the transplanting, told the New York Times. “‘This is absolutely worth doing,’ said one of the team’s divers, Ryo Isobe, 26, who works as a diving instructor during the summer tourist season. ‘When I think of how colorful these reefs used to be, I know we need to do all we can.'”
