Call to Action to Save Earth's Oceans
VANIER: Friday is World Oceans Day. It's a call to action to clean up some of our most incredible resources and especially to save the oceans from plastic. One focus is Australia's Great Barrier Reef where advocates are working to ban single-use plastics such as straws; another danger -- climate change. This is home to the world's largest collection of coral reefs. It has already experienced extensive damage because of massive coral bleaching. And that of course, is alarming scientists. Ivan Watson joins us live now from Palmco (ph), Australia. Ivan what's being done?</s>IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I mean it is World Oceans Day. But this has been a tough story in this part of the world because in the last two years climate change and record high temperatures killed off an estimated 50 percent of the coral in the Great Barrier Reef -- this magnificent marine habitat, some 2,300 kilometers long. The Australian government has pledged up to around $400 million to come up with ways to try to save it so now the government scientist experts, they're in a race to come up with some kind of a way to save what's left of this magnificent reef.</s>WATSON: In aquamarine waters off the coast of Australia, there's a world so fantastic that words cannot do it justice. A sprawling marine habitat of coral reefs that's larger than Italy. I'm at the Great Barrier Reef. It is one of the natural wonders of the world and it is in trouble.</s>CHARLIE VERON, GODFATHER OF CORAL: This is the beginning of a</s>WATSON: Charlie Veron is the world's leading authority on the Great Barrier Reef. In a career spanning nearly half a century, he's discovered a quarter of the world's coral. Do you still remember the first time you came out and saw some of this?</s>VERON: I'll never forget the first time I did. It made an image (ph) impression on me. I was absolutely -- my life started (ph).</s>WATSON: The 73-year-old godfather of coral gives me a guided tour. With a few short strokes we dive into a vibrant underwater universe, a place where living coral some of it centuries old provides shelter and food for countless species of marine life. But then Veron takes me to a nearby patch where the coral is dead as far as the eye can see. These coral forests cooked to death by record marine heat waves in 2016 and 2017.</s>WATSON: In just two years.</s>VERON: In just two years.</s>WATSON: Australia is now in a race to save what's left of the reef. In April the government pledged around 400 million U.S. dollars to come up with ways to protect it.</s>LINA BAY, SENIOR RESEARCH SCIENTIST: All our pilot studies are suggesting that it's all possible to help the reef help itself.</s>WATSON: Dr. Lina Bay is one of the scientists at a government research center trying to genetically engineer heat-resistant coral. This is an example of plating coral from the Great Barrier Reef but born and bred here in the laboratory four years ago. And you can see how much it's grown in that time. Scientists are also experimenting with a kind of IVF treatment to boost reproduction in the wilds. In this lab they test what they call a sunshield. Thinner than a human hair, it could theoretically protect coral from the sun. This inventor demonstrates a submersible drone called the ranger bot.</s>WATSON: Guided by artificial intelligence, it is designed to one day patrol the reef and protect the coral from predators. So far these are just pilot projects that could get funding from the government's new Reef Protection Program.</s>BAY: There are still options available to us if we start looking at it now. We just can't wait 20 years and then start thinking about this.</s>WATSON: Can $400 million save this reef?</s>VERON: No.</s>WATSON: Why not?</s>VERSON: Because the water is warming.</s>WATSON: Research shows record heat is killing coral at an increasingly frequent rate all across the planet. Australia alone cannot stop global warming caused by the burning of fossil fuels. Scientists here warn unless that changes this incredible reef stands little chance of surviving.</s>WATSON: Now Cyril, one of the other measures that the government is looking into is trying to clean up the fresh water waterways that have a lot of erosion coming out of them into the ocean that doesn't help the health of the coral. And you can see this water here isn't that aquamarine blue in the ocean. It is more brownish because of that sediment in there. But the other fact that some people may not know is the vast bulk of that Great Barrier Reef is far, far out to sea further than the eye can see. We were out of distance -- could not see the Australian mainland when we visited it. It was a distance of more than 50 kilometers that we traveled to these wild spots with all this life underneath the sea and above. For example, I saw a whale breaching near one of the reefs yesterday. But that just kind of underscores the fact that what is killing the reefs is not pollution from cities here, it's not kind of plastic in the water. It is literally the temperatures of the entire planet that have been heating up for the last 140 years -- Cyril.</s>VANIER: And you know, Ivan -- the scary thing is I remember that I reported on this, we've reported on this almost I think annually. And it just doesn't seem to change, the story doesn't get better. In fact it just gets worse. But thank you very much. That was an excellent piece of reporting. Ivan Watson -- telling the story from where it needs to be told, thank you. Appreciate it, my friend. And if you want to help save our oceans from plastic, students in schools around the world are celebrating World Oceans Day by enjoying lunch without plastic. The best efforts will be featured on CNN's live blog. Learn more on how to participate at CNN.com/zeroplasticlunch. One of the other things we're talking about -- the plastics in the ocean. That's another huge danger that we're talking about on World's Ocean Day. Ivan Cabrera from the CNN Weather Center has been working on this.</s>IVAN CABRERA, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, you know. And the other item mentioned, and of course, the bleaching that is occurring is because of the warm water temperatures here but it's the other problem that we have a lot of plastic in the oceans because eventually it gets back to us. Let's talk about it here and take you through the numbers because they are astonishing here as we check in. Eight million metric tons dumped into the oceans</s>VANIER: Yes. You guys have been all across a number of volcanoes for a couple weeks now.</s>CABRERA: It has been, hasn't it? Very active, yes.</s>VANIER: Ivan Cabrera from the CNN Weather Center -- thank you very much, appreciate it.</s>CABRERA: Good to see you.</s>VANIER: Yes. Coming up, following Donald Trump's lead on water bottles. Stay with us.