The Reef Futures meeting means a lot to me because it’s where I jumped back into the world of coral reefs. The first time I attended it was 2018. I’d written Spineless, which is about jellyfish, and I was flirting with the idea of writing about corals. But I knew how the reefs of the world were struggling, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to dive into telling a story of a tragedy.

But at the Reef Futures meeting, along with the real challenges facing the reefs, I also found stories of hope. That larval experience grew into my second book, Life on the Rocks.

The book then garnered an invitation to give a keynote at Reef Futures 2022, which was truly one of the high points of my life. I was able to speak to and thank the coral scientists and practitioners who allowed me to share their stories and who are out there trying to understand coral amid increasingly rough seas.

Then, I stepped into that role myself by helping to create Tela Coral.

So, Reef Futures 2024 in Cancun, Mexico was squarely on our radar as a way to share our work with eight hundred or so coral scientists and practitioners from around the world. And Tela Coral packed the week-long event with fabulous stories from the Rebel Reef.

The opening day started off on a super high note. The last talk of the morning’s plenary session was by Tela Marine’s fabulous biologist Senyacen Ramirez. We’ve been working with Senyacen since she came to Tela Marine about two years ago, and have grown to love her for her quiet competence and skill in marine husbandry. Watching her take the international stage and wowing the audience with her poise and charisma and the wonderful way she described Tela’s reefs was truly inspiring. Definitely worth a watch!

Day two featured an afternoon session of short films submitted by coral restoration groups around the world. We submitted a film that announced of our plans to build a biobank to protect the corals of the Rebel Reef. You can read more about that on in another post or just check out the film here

Senyacen and Liam Flockhart-Ford, who is a Families in Nature student and who joined us in Tela last year, both presented results of work on coral recruitment and settlement. Liam shared the news of finding the first baby corals on the settlement tiles that we placed on the reefs and Senyacen described further analysis once the tiles were bleached allowing us to discern even more baby coral skeletons. Both presentations were well received because so few coral settlers are found on reefs in the Caribbean elsewhere. This project is ongoing and we look forward to finding out more about the kinds of species that are recruiting in the various parts of the reef.

Meetings are for work, of course, but you’ve got to throw in some fun too. The Tela Coral team took a break from the official schedule to check out Cancun’s reefs. We observed the work of local teams working to build coral nurseries and had a great time exploring the big boulder-y formations offshore and the crystal-clear water of Cancun.

And once the official meeting was over, Reef Futures threw a final reception featuring a coral-ized version of the musical, Les Miserable. Such musical frivoloty has become a Reef Futures tradition. The first meeting ended in a rendition of Santa Claus is Coming to Town rewritten as an ode to coral restoration.

This year, Tiff and Chantal joined the choir of coral scientists and reef managers waving flags and coral colonies and singing “One more reef! One. Reef. More!” After that, the disco was calling. Special shout out to Australians working to protect the Great Barrier Reef using marine cloud brightening, Daniel and Luke Harrison, for making it such a fun night!