While Saipan, in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, seems remote, the coral reefs are threatened by bleaching and crown-of-thorn starfish outbreaks. To help corals recover from past events, corals are being grown in nurseries in Saipans lagoon and then outplanted on degraded reefs.
Bert Weeks, National Coral Reef Management Fellowship class of 2020-2021, was born and raised in Hawai'i on the Island of O'ahu and returned home after completing his master's degree at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego. During his two-year fellowship, he worked at the State of Hawai'i Department of LandT and Natural Resources (DLNR) Division of Aquatic Resources (DAR). One of his focus areas was to improve coral restoration in Hawai'i through the creation of a state-wide coral restoration action plan.
As a Data and Information Manageme,nt Specialist for the Coral Reef Information System (CoRIS), I am used to looking at the results of a research project — after all files have been assembled into neatly organized "data packages". Everything can be done online, so we data managers rarely get a chance to leave the office for fieldwork like other scientists. Still, when I started at NOAA in August of 2021, I was thrilled to work in coral reef science, a subject more aligned with my interests and graduate school research than the oil spill-heavy material from my past in my home state of Texas. As excited as I was, I started this position during the pandemic, so my experience has been squeezed into a small laptop screen at home.
The NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program was established in 2000 by the Coral Reef Conservation Act. Headquartered in Silver Spring, Maryland, the program is part of NOAA's Office for Coastal Management.
The Coral Reef Information System (CoRIS) is the program's information portal that provides access to NOAA coral reef data and products.
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