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Coral reefs are vital to the health of the oceans, but in recent years they’ve been decimated by climate change, pollution, and overfishing. While this has been widely covered, a new documentary sheds light on the groundbreaking efforts to restore these fragile ecosystems, and the scientists and communities working to bring them back to life. Reef Builders showcases the work of the Sheba Hope Grows initiative, part of one of the largest coral reef restoration efforts globally, led by Mars Sustainable Solutions. Sheba, a cat food brand owned by global conglomerate Mars Inc., has been supporting reef restoration through its Hope Grows program since 2019. Threats Endangering Coral Reefs As environmental disasters intensify in a warming climate, the destruction of coral reefs can be overlooked. Oceans are key to world health as they regulate the climate and weather, provide food, and support billions of people around the globe. Coral reefs are probably the most important ecosystem that drives the health of oceans. A quarter of all marine life is found on coral reefs, although they occupy a very small percentage of the ocean surface, says David Smith, chief marine scientist and senior director at Mars Sustainable Solutions, a program run by Mars Global, which tackles environmental threats through science-based actions. The other side of the story, unfortunately, is that they’re on the edge of extinction. The best science that we have today suggests that we could lose up to 95% of coral reefs in the next 20 years. Destructive fishing practices, water pollution, and land development all contribute to reef degradation, while climate change intensifies natural threats like ocean acidification and marine heat waves, which lead to coral bleaching, according to Smith. Just this week, the International Coral Reef Initiative announced that 84% of the world’s coral reefs have been affected by the worst bleaching event ever. [Image: courtesy AMV/Stream] Work Behind the Restoration MSS has worked on coral reef restoration since 2006, investing millions in research, builds, and community engagement. It says approximately 1.3 million coral fragments and 87,000 “reef stars” (metal structures designed to support coral growth) have been installed, all using locally sourced materials. In collaboration with local communities, organizations, and stakeholders, restoration sites are carefully chosen based on both need and feasibility. Teams then deploy reef stars to create expansive, interconnected webs across degraded reef areas. This approach enables coverage of an area the size of a basketball court within days, with dozens of reef stars installed each hour. These structures help stabilize loose coral rubble and provide a solid foundation for coral to grow. [Image: courtesy AMV/Stream] After a few years, corals colonize the reef stars, eventually integrating them into the natural reef. The result is a restored habitat for fish and invertebrates, alongside the return of native coral species. Many coral reefs around the world have got to a stage where they’re not able to recover without any assistance, and that’s where restoration comes in to aid the recovery in those systems that have lost their ability to recover naturally, Smith says. [Image: courtesy AMV/Stream] The first Sheba Hope Grows project was launched in 2019 in Salisi Besar, a reef off the coast of Sulawesi, Indonesia. Within five years, the reefs had grown back. The organization now uses it as a model to show the impact reef stars can have. That success proves that large-scale restoration is possible, says Mindy Barry, Shebas global VP of marketing. That’s what gives you hope, and that’s what ideally will inspire consumers to say this is an issue that not only matters, that I need to care about, but there are things that can be done. [Image: courtesy AMV/Stream] The Making of Reef Builders Reef Builders follows coastal communities in Indonesia, Hawaii, Kenya, and Australia that are working to restore their disappearing coral reefs, essential for their food and livelihood. “There’s a huge science program that underpins the restoration, Smith says. But actually what was unique, and one of the most rewarding parts of my job, is when you have that knowledge, you’ve done that research, but then you talk to the people who are at the coral face, which is actually in the local community with harbors that depend on that reef. This intersection of science and community was at the heart of the project featured in Reef Builders, which now spans 72 restoration sites across the world. Coral reefs form a natural belt around the planet stretching across the world’s oceans, but they’re concentrated most heavily in the Indo-Pacific. Within this belt, distinct regions emerge, each with its own unique ecological and social characteristics. The team selected sites to ensure broad representation of these different regions, focusing on areas where strong local community involvement could drive meaningful restoration. It’s not us necessarily restoring. It’s those communities that are restoring,” Smith says. “What we can do, and what we’ve done, is demonstrate that it’s possible to restore a reef effectively, rapidly, in a way that’s accessible to local communities around the world. While each region has its own environmental challenges, the human stories remain strikingly similar. The emotion of the individuals, of those local members whose lives were being impacted by the loss really shines through, Smith says. It’s that beautiful combination between, yes, you’ve got all the white-coated science and numbers and spreadsheets but actually, ultimately, it’s people’s problems. People are there to try and find a solution for it. [Image: courtesy AMV/Stream] Call to Action People often underestimate the crisis facing coral reefs. According to a Sheba survey conducted by Wakefield Research, 70% of people believe that coral reefs have little to no impact on their daily lives. But reefs are essential ecosystems that support a wide variety of fish species, many of which are commercially valuable and eaten by people around the world. Reefs also play a crucial role in producing a substantial amount of the oxygen humans rely on. Between 1957 and 2007, research shows that more than 50% of coral reefs vanished. But the crisis is escalating, and so is the need for action. Barry says that through the documentary Sheba aims to rally people to recognize that saving coral reefs is not a solitary mission but a collective effort. Smith echoes that goal. Who’s going to start to make those first steps on that journey? And then who can you bring along with you? he asks. I hope that people feel that’s a trajectory that we can get on together.” Reef Builders is available to stream worldwide on Prime Video. Through June 29, Amazon will donate $1 for every hour of the documentary thats streamed in the U.S.up to $100,000to the Kuleana Coral Restoration foundation in Hawaii.
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In a February 2025 Truth Social post, President Donald Trump declared a Golden Age in Arts and Culture. So far, this golden age has entailed an executive order calling for the federal agency that funds local museums and libraries to be dismantled, with most grants rescinded. The Trump administration has forbidden federal arts funding from going to artists who promote what the administration calls gender ideology. Theres been a purge of the board of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, with Trump appointing himself chair. And the administration has canceled National Endowment for the Humanities grants. Suffice it to say, many artists and arts organizations across the U.S. are worried: Will government arts funding dry up? Do these cuts signal a new war on arts and culture? How do artists make it through this period of change? As scholars who study the arts, activism and policy, were watching the latest developments with apprehension. But we think its important to point out that while the U.S. government has never been a global leader of arts funding, American artists have always been innovative, creative and scrappy during times of political turmoil. A rocky relationship with the arts For much of the countrys early history, government funding for the arts was rarely guaranteed or stable. After the Civil War, the Second Industrial Revolution facilitated massive concentrations of wealth, in what became known as the the Gilded Age. Private arts funding soared during this period, with some titans of industry, such as Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, seeing it as their duty to build museums, theaters and libraries for the public. The heavy reliance on private funding for the arts troubled some Americans, who feared these institutions would become too exposed to the whims of the wealthy. In response, Progressive Era activists and politicians argued that it was the governments responsibility to build arts spaces accessible to all Americans. Efforts to fund the arts expanded with the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932, as the country was reeling from the Great Depression. From 1935 to 1943, the Works Progress Administration provided jobs with stable wages for artists through the Federal Art Project. However, Congress famously terminated the program in response to a 1937 production of The Revolt of the Beavers, which conservative politicians denounced for containing overt Marxist themes. Nonetheless, over the ensuing decades, the federal government generally signaled its support for the arts. Congress established the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities in 1965 to fund arts organizations and artists. And since 1972, the General Services Administration has commissioned public art for federal buildings and organized a registry of prospective artists. The NEA gave US$8.4 million in direct funding to artists in 1989 via fellowships and grants. This might be considered the high-water mark for unrestricted government funding for individual artists. By the 1980s, sexuality, drugs and American morality had become hot-button political issues. The arts, from music to theater, were at the center of this culture war. Pressure escalated in 1989 when conservative leaders contested two NEA-funded exhibitions featuring work by Andres Serrano and Robert Mapplethorpe, which they deemed homoerotic and anti-Christian. In 1990, Congress instated a decency clause guiding all future NEA work. When Republicans regained control of Congress in 1994, they slashed direct funding for the arts. With direct funding to artists largely eliminated, todays artists can indirectly receive federal government support through federal arts agency grants, which are given to arts organizations that then dole out a portion to artists. Local and state government agencies also provide small amounts of direct support for artists. The stage of democracy Artists and arts organizations have a long legacy of persistence and strategic organizing during periods of political and economic upheaval. In the pre-Revolutionary colonies, representatives of the British government banned theatrical performances to discourage revolutionary action. In response, activist playwrights organized underground parlor dramas and informal dramatic readings to keep arts-based activism alive. Activist theater continued into the antebellum period for the purposes of promting the abolitionist cause. These dramas, often organized by women, would take place in living rooms, outside of public view. The clandestine staged readings the most famous of which was written by one of the earliest Black American playwrights, William Wells Brown seeded enthusiasm and solidarity for the antislavery cause. These privately staged readings took place alongside public performances and lectures. Craft the world you want Dozens of experimental schools like the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee and Commonwealth College in Arkansas were founded in the 1920s and 1930s to train activists. Supporting adult learners of all ages but specifically young adults they initially focused on arts-based techniques for training workers in labor activism. For example, students wrote short plays based on their experiences of factory work. In their rehearsals and performances, they imagined endings in which workers triumphed over cruel bosses. Many programs were residential, rural and embraced early versions of mutual aid, where artists and activists support one another directly through pooling money and resources. Tuition was minimal and generally provided directly from labor organizations and allies, including the American Fund for Public Service. Most teachers were volunteers, and the learning communities often farmed to cover basic necessities. Although these institutions faced perpetual threats from local governments and even the FBI, these communal schools became testing grounds for social change. Some programs even became training sites for civil rights activists. Linda Goode Bryant attends the opening reception of an exhibition honoring Just Above Midtown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City on Oct. 3, 2022. [Photo: Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images for The Museum of Modern Art] Curate the world you need Black artists have long created spaces for community connection and career development. The Great Migration brought many Black American artists and thinkers to New York City, famously spurring the Harlem Renaissance, which lasted from the end of World War I through the 1920s. During this period, the neighborhood became a fountain of culture, with Black artists producing countless plays, books, music and other visionary works. This legacy continued at Just Above Midtown, or JAM, a gallery and arts laboratory led by Linda Goode Bryant from 1974 through 1986 on West 57th Street in Manhattan. At the time, arts organizations primarily supported artwork by white men. In response, Goode Bryant launched JAM to create a space that supported and celebrated artists of color. JAM provided arts business workshops, cultivated collaborations and launched the careers of Black artists such as David Hammons and Lorraine O’Grady. The future is now Whether or not they realize it, many artists and arts organizations today are integrating lessons from the past. In recent years, theyve promoted the unionization of museum workers and created local mutual aid networks such as the Museum Workers Relief Fund, which was one of many groups fundraising for arts workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Theyre building networks of financial support to share space and money with other artists and arts organizations. And theyre forming cultural land trusts, which create land cooperatives where artists can work and live with one another. Whats more, new philanthropic models are reshaping arts funding by elevating the perspectives of artists, rather than those of wealthy funders. CAST in San Francisco helps arts organizations find affordable gallery and performance spaces. The Community and Cultural Power Fund uses a trust-based philanthropy model that allows artists and community members to decide who receives future grants. The Ruth Foundation for the Arts makes artists the decision-makers in giving grants to arts organizations. While the current challenges are unprecedented and funding threats will likely reshape arts organizations and further limit direct support for artists were confident that the arts will persist with or without government support. Johanna K. Taylor is an associate professor at The Design School at Arizona State University. Mary McAvoy is an associate professor of theatre at Arizona State University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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New Jersey has a million acres filled with towering pitch pines. Its springtime and the trees stand straight, bare and bonelike, above a carpet of winter needles that worry state fire service professionals. This week, a swath of the Pine Barrens went up in flames, a stark warning of what might be a treacherous fire season. About 11,500 acres were affected by a fire that started Tuesday morning in the Greenwood Forest Wildlife Management Area of Ocean County, New Jersey Forest Fire Service said midday Wednesday. The Garden State Parkway was shut down for miles as thick smoke wafted into neighborhoods and thousands of households and businesses were evacuated for hours and had power cuts. The New Jersey Forest Fire Service said 50% of the blaze was contained by Wednesday evening. Foresters had warned in March that New Jersey was particularly vulnerable to wildfires this year because of below-average rains, near-drought conditionsand a delay in prescribed burns by authorities that have typically helped to reduce risk. A Smokey Bear sign warns against wildfire in Brendan T. Byrne State Forest in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. [Photo: Anna Mattson/Inside Climate News] The pitch pine is considered resilient to fire. Its bark is dark and scaly and can endure the periodic wildfires that are part of the natural ecological cycle. But the pinelands, the first national reserve in the country, also thrive because of forest service prescribed burns to rid brush. This year, foresters said they cut back on springtime burns because of on-the-ground conditions: It has been just too hot and dry to start prescribed fires. The Forest Fire Service typically treats 25,000 acres in central New Jersey, across seven counties, with planned burns. So far this year, forest personnel have burned only 3,320 acres, a fraction of its work in previous years. Five years ago, 26,000 acres were burned. In 2024, 15,000 were targeted. New Jersey entered fire season, from March to May, following its third driest January since records began in 1895. State fire officials are warning that a drop in rainfall and snow have made autumn leaves and winter needles ready tinder across what is called the Atlantic Coastal Pine Barrens. Conditions have severely hampered efforts by the Forest Fire Service to conduct prescribed fire operations that are critical to preventing wildfires, Bill Donnelly, the states fire warden and forest fire service chief, said in an email before Tuesdays flames. Donnelly and his team normally conduct prescribed operations through March 15 in the southern and central regions of New Jersey, and April 1 in the north. [Image: Paul Horn/Inside Climate News] When fire officials burn during dry conditions, theres a higher risk of burning into whats called the duff layer, which is the decomposed organic matter like leaves, twigs, and needles that sits atop the soil. If burned, Donnelly said, it could damage new growth and cause smoke that lingers, affecting communities and roadways for weeks. Not sure what the rest of the years gonna hold for us, Donnelly said in a press briefing last month. If things continue the way they are, were going to have quite a fire season on our hands. New Jersey, the countrys fourth-smallest state geographically, offers an example of Americas growing fire risk in the Northeast. The region is experiencing drier and wetter seasons, part of what is a changing and much less predictable cycle of drought and deluge. Evolving climate patterns are testing fire strategy from California to Connecticut as well as communities. Los Angeles suffered devastating fires in January, with billions of dollars in damages, and UCLA researchers, in an extensive survey, found residents reported emotional and financial loss for months after. Beautiful broadleaf deciduous trees that color the Northeast in the fall are tightly packed so that, in less trying times, when the leaves drop they often hold a lot of moisture, according to Erica Smithwick, a professor of geography and ecology at Penn State University. Not so in drier conditions. The leaves are parched for water as they fall and pose an increased fire risk. “If the leaves are dead and they dry out in the fall and they drop to the ground, all you need is ignition to get it all to burn, Smithwick said. Burns are meant to clear undergrowth safely and limit wildfire. Last fall, multiple woodland fires broke out in the Northeast including Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New York. In January, firefighters from a coalition of Northeast states met to discuss the increasing unpredictability of rain and drought across the region. Record-low rainfall allowed for blazes in October and November north of Boston, in Brooklyn, and in Connecticut. On New Jerseys border with New York, fire scorched 5,000 acres of land and one volunteer firefighter died. Some experts, including Jaclyn Rhoads, executive director at Pinelands Preservation Alliance, suggest that prescribed burning should occur throughout the year. Fire personnel should be planning beyond seasons, she said, and considering month-by-month weather conditions. We need to try to mimic the wildfires in a controlled way that allows for us to receive all the benefits without necessarily the damages, Rhoads said. There are plenty of exampls, like in Florida, where their forest fire service burns all year round. Smithwick at Penn State noted that Northeast forests are close to cities and infrastructure such as roads and powerlines. Maps of wildlife urban interface (WUI)areas where wildland vegetation and man-made development intermingle and are particularly vulnerable to wildfiresshow an expansion of 2 million acres per year based on data from the U.S. Fire Administration. Even a small wildfire could have more impact in the east because of all that built infrastructure, Smithwick said. In fact, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, the mid-Atlanticsome of the highest WUI in the country is in the east. Caryn Shinske, senior press officer of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, said fire teams in the past month had been staffing fire towers, staging for initial response for possible fires, and readying equipment for the summer risks. By Anna Mattson, Inside Climate News This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News. It is republished with permission. 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