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The venture, joined with the University of the West Indies-Discovery Bay Marine Laboratory and the Caribbean Student Environmental Alliance, will work with teachers and students from the William Knibb High and Holland High Schools in Falmouth, Jamaica. The project will begin this week with a training session for teachers. This will provide them with information and materials to teach their students about the importance of mangroves for Jamaican marine ecosystems.

Mangrove forests are made of several species of trees and shrubs that grow in the intertidal zone. They provide important habitat for young fish and sea creatures, and help protect the coastline from storms.

Following the educational training sessions teachers and students will go on a mangrove walk to identify the different species of mangroves, observe the negative human impacts to the mangrove forest, and collect young mangrove seedlings called ‘propagules’ for future rehabilitation of a mangrove forest in West Falmouth. The students will plant the propagules in containers and track their growth over the coming school year while learning about mangrove survivability.

The Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation and Discovery Bay Marine Laboratory will continue running training sessions throughout the school year, and after several months will help students plant their young mangrove trees along the shoreline. The young trees will be planted in restoration sites monitored by the University of the West Indies.

About the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation

The Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation (LOF), founded by Khaled bin Sultan, is conducting the world’s largest coral reef survey and high resolution mapping expedition, as part of its 5 year Global Reef Expedition. The Expedition is helping LOF realize its mission to provide science-based solutions to protect and restore ocean health. As part of its commitment to Science Without Borders®, Living Oceans provides its data and information to leading ocean-focused organizations, governments, scientists, and local communities so that they can use knowledge to work toward sustainable ocean protection. For more information visit www.livingoceansfoundation.org

Photo – http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20141010/151469

CONTACT: Alison Barrat, Director of Communications, Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation, Barrat@lof.org, 301 577 1288 x 204

Walter, who now lives in Enterprise, Alabama, spent a night in the ocean fending off sharks, plugging holes in his leaking life vest, and hoping for a merciful end. The Coast Guard located and saved him the next morning and his harrowing experience made many headlines.

Now, a quarter-century later, his sunken plane has played an important part in a discovery that may help scientists better understand coral reef ecosystems.

In April, 2011, researchers from the Global Reef Expedition, a project of the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation, stumbled upon Walter’s submerged twin-engine plane. That discovery shed light on the mysterious formation of perfectly circular “meadows” of seagrass.

The Seagrass circles range in diameter from a few dozen meters to hundreds of meters. Some are solid circles and others have a ‘doughnut hole’ in the middle. They are important to the health of coral reefs, because they provide vital nursery habitat and feeding areas to many animal species that live in and around reefs. But their round shape has been baffling.

Scientists from the Global Reef Expedition, a multi year research program to study and preserve coral reefs around the world, discovered filled in sink holes under the solid seagrass circles. And, in every doughnut shaped seagrass circle they found a synthetic object, including Walter Wyatt’s plane.

Research suggests that phosphorous leaching from the sinkholes acts like a fertilizer for the solid circular seagrass beds above. And, for the doughnut shaped seagrass beds another kind of fertilizer is at work.

Underwater observations made during reef surveys revealed that Walter Wyatt’s plane is acting as an artificial reef, providing safe harbor for many fishes and marine invertebrates. This “fertilizer,” the researchers believe, is the waste excreted by the animals that make the reefs home.  To avoid predators, these creatures typically venture just a short distance from the safety of the reefs.  As a result, they fertilize a relatively narrow ring around the ‘reef’ or object.  It’s in this circular ring where seagrass thrives.

The findings of the Global Reef Expedition will help the Bahamian government better manage Cay Sal Bank.  That should lead to improved protection of the coral reefs that are such a vital part of ocean environment.  That’s good news for coral reefs in the western Atlantic Ocean, and for people everywhere.

Walter now feels that he benefited from his terrible misfortune. “It was a life-changing experience for me, and not entirely to the negative,” he said.  “For one thing, I found out I wasn’t the only being in the world.  I found out I was fragile.”

As are coral reefs everywhere.

For the full story and downloadable photos please visit http://www.globalreefexpedition.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=248&Itemid=574

About the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation
Founded by HRH Prince General Khaled bin Sultan of Saudi Arabia, the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation was incorporated in California as a 501(c)(3), public benefit, Private Operating Foundation in September 2000. With its headquarters in Washington DC, the Living Oceans Foundation is dedicated to the conservation and restoration of oceans of the world, and champions their preservation through research, education, and a commitment to Science Without Borders®.

For more information, visit http://www.livingoceansfoundation.org and http://www.globalreefexpedition.com.

Science Without Borders® is registered to the Foundation for financial sponsorship of marine conservation programs and scientific research and to promote public awareness of the need to preserve, protect and restore the world’s oceans and aquatic resources.