What was the most difficult job you ever did? Was it working in the sun? Was it working to provide food for a family or a community? Was it working days and nights trying to protect lives and property? Was it working alone or working on a project that wasn't guaranteed to succeed, but that might improve human health or save a life? Was it working to build something, create something, make a work of art? Was it work for which you were never sure you were fully understood or appreciated? The people in our communities who do these jobs deserve our attention, our love and our deepest support.
Šta je za vas bio najteži posao? Kad ste radili na suncu? Onaj kad ste izdržavali porodicu ili zajednicu? Kad ste radili noć i dan kako biste zaštitili ljude i imovinu? Onaj kad ste radili sami ili onaj kad niste bili sigurni da li će projekat uspeti, a znate da može da poboljša zdravlje ili spase život? Da li je to bilo onda kad ste gradili, stvarali nešto, neko umetničko delo? Ili onda kad niste bili sigurni da li vas razumeju i poštuju? Ljudi koji rade ove poslove u našoj zajednici zaslužuju pažnju, ljubav i najveću podršku.
But people aren't the only ones in our communities who do these difficult jobs. These jobs are also done by the plants, the animals and the ecosystems on our planet, including the ecosystems I study: the tropical coral reefs. Coral reefs are farmers. They provide food, income and food security for hundreds of millions of people around the world. Coral reefs are security guards. The structures that they build protect our shorelines from storm surge and waves, and the biological systems that they house filter the water and make it safer for us to work and play. Coral reefs are chemists. The molecules that we're discovering on coral reefs are increasingly important in the search for new antibiotics and new cancer drugs. And coral reefs are artists. The structures that they build are some of the most beautiful things on planet Earth. And this beauty is the foundation of the tourism industry in many countries with few or little other natural resources.
Ali ljudi nisu jedini koji u našoj zajednici rade te teške poslove. Te poslove rade i biljke, životinje i eko-sistemi na našoj planeti, kao i oni eko-sistemi koje ja proučavam, tropski koralni grebeni. Koralni grebeni su farmeri. Oni obezbeđuju hranu i prihod milijardama ljudi širom sveta. Koralni grebeni su telohranitelji. Strukture koje oni grade štite obale od oluja, talasa i biološki sistemi koji oni imaju prečišćavaju vodu da bismo živeli zdravo. Koralni grebeni su hemičari. Molekule koje pronalazimo na koralnim grebenima veoma su važni za istraživanje antibiotika i novih lekova za rak. Koralni grebeni su i umetnici. Strukture koje grade nešto je najlepše na planeti Zemlji. I njihova lepota je u osnovi turizma mnogih zemalja koje nemaju puno drugih prirodnih bogatstava.
So for all of these reasons, all of these ecosystem services, economists estimate the value of the world's coral reefs in the hundreds of billions of dollars per year. And yet despite all that hard work being done for us and all that wealth that we gain, we have done almost everything we possibly could to destroy that. We have taken the fish out of the oceans and we have added in fertilizer, sewage, diseases, oil, pollution, sediments. We have trampled the reefs physically with our boats, our fins, our bulldozers, and we have changed the chemistry of the entire sea, warmed the waters and made storms worse. And these would all be bad on their own, but these threats magnify each other and compound one another and make each other worse.
Zbog svih ovih razloga, i usluga koje nam koralni grebeni pružaju, ekonomisti procenjuju da je njihova vrednost na stotine milijardi dolara godišnje. Iako za nas rade ove teške poslove, iako nam donose novac, uradili smo skoro sve što smo mogli da ih uništimo. Izbacili smo ribe iz okeana, ubacili smo prečišćivače, kanalizaciju, bolesti, naftu, zagađivače i sedimente. Fizički smo ih oštetili brodovima, podmornicama, buldožerima. Promenili smo hemijski sastav mora, zagrejali smo vode i pojačali oluje. I sve to ne bi bilo toliko strašno da se problemi uzajamno ne pojačavaju i jedni druge ne usložljavaju i pogoršavaju.
I'll give you an example. Where I live and work, in Curaçao, a tropical storm went by a few years ago. And on the eastern end of the island, where the reefs are intact and thriving, you could barely tell a tropical storm had passed. But in town, where corals had died from overfishing, from pollution, the tropical storm picked up the dead corals and used them as bludgeons to kill the corals that were left. This is a coral that I studied during my PhD -- I got to know it quite well. And after this storm took off half of its tissue, it became infested with algae, the algae overgrew the tissue and that coral died. This magnification of threats, this compounding of factors is what Jeremy Jackson describes as the "slippery slope to slime." It's hardly even a metaphor because many of our reefs now are literally bacteria and algae and slime.
Daću vam primer. U Kurasau gde živim i radim, pre par godina došlo je do tropske oluje. Na istočnom delu ostrva gde su grebeni bili zdravi i netaknuti, nikad ne biste rekli da je oluje bilo. Ali u gradu, u kome su korali uginuli zbog pecanja i zagađenja tropska oluja je podigla mrtve korale i sa njima, kao toljagom, ubila korale koji su bili zdravi. Koral koga sam izučavala na doktorskim studijama. Dobro sam ga upoznala. Kad je zbog oluje izgubio pola tkiva, alge su ga naselile. Narasle su preko tkiva i koral je uginuo. Ove mnogobrojne pretnje, ove zajedničke faktore Džeremi Džekson naziva "klizavom nizbrdicom ka mulju". To više nije ni metafora jer su sad mnogi grebeni naseljeni samo bakterijama, algama i muljem.
Now, this is the part of the talk where you may expect me to launch into my plea for us to all save the coral reefs. But I have a confession to make: that phrase drives me nuts. Whether I see it in a tweet, in a news headline or the glossy pages of a conservation brochure, that phrase bothers me, because we as conservationists have been sounding the alarms about the death of coral reefs for decades. And yet, almost everyone I meet, no matter how educated, is not sure what a coral is or where they come from. How would we get someone to care about the world's coral reefs when it's an abstract thing they can barely understand? If they don't understand what a coral is or where it comes from, or how funny or interesting or beautiful it is, why would we expect them to care about saving them?
Ovo je sad deo govora kad očekujete da vas zamolim da čuvate koralne grebene. Moram vam nešto priznati: to me izluđuje. Da li to bio tvit, naslov u novinama ili strana u brošurama za očuvanje grebena ta molba mi smeta jer smo decenijama upozoravali na smrt koralnih grebena. Međutim, bilo koga upoznam, bez obzira na stepen obrazovanja, nije siguran šta je koral ili kako nastaje. Kako neko može da brine o koralnim grebenovima kad su oni za njih apstraktna stvar koju jedva da razumeju. Ako ne razumeju šta je koral i kako nastaje ili kako je smešan, zanimljiv i lep, kako očekujemo da će brinuti o njegovom opstanku.
So let's change that. What is a coral and where does it come from? Corals are born in a number of different ways, but most often by mass spawning: all of the individuals of a single species on one night a year, releasing all the eggs they've made that year into the water column, packaged into bundles with sperm cells. And those bundles go to the surface of the ocean and break apart. And hopefully -- hopefully -- at the surface of the ocean, they meet the eggs and sperm from other corals. And that is why you need lots of corals on a coral reef -- so that all of their eggs can meet their match at the surface. When they're fertilized, they do what any other animal egg does: divides in half again and again and again. Taking these photos under the microscope every year is one of my favorite and most magical moments of the year. At the end of all this cell division, they turn into a swimming larva -- a little tiny blob of fat the size of a poppy seed, but with all of the sensory systems that we have. They can sense color and light, textures, chemicals, pH. They can even feel pressure waves; they can hear sound. And they use those talents to search the bottom of the reef for a place to attach and live the rest of their lives.
Hajde da to promenimo. Šta je koral i kako nastaje? Korali nastaju na veliki broj načina, najčešće mrešćenjem: svi delovi jednog korala jednom godišnje u toku jedne noći ispuštaju jaja u vodeni stub. Jaja su u zamotuljak spakovana zajedno sa spermom. Ti zamotuljci penju se na površinu okeana i razdvajaju se. I ako bude sve u redu, na površini okena srešće jaja i spermu drugih korala. I zato je potrebno mnogo korala na koralnom grebenu, da bi sva jaja mogla da dođu u kontakt sa svojim pandanom. Kad se oplode, jaja, kao i kod drugih životinja, dele se na pola i opet na pola. Omiljeni i najmagičniji trenutak tokom godine jeste kad to slikam preko mikroskopa. Kad se ćelije podele, pretvaraju se u plivajuću larvu, malu grudvicu masti veličine makovog zrna, sa svim senzornim sistemima koje i ljudi imaju. Mogu da opaze boju, svetlost, teksturu, osete hemikalije i pH. Mogu čak i da osete pritisak talasa, mogu da čuju zvuk. Ove svoje talente koriste kako bi istražili dno grebena, pričvrstili se za njega i bili tu do kraja svog života.
So imagine finding a place where you would live the rest of your life when you were just two days old. They attach in the place they find most suitable, they build a skeleton underneath themselves, they build a mouth and tentacles, and then they begin the difficult work of building the world's coral reefs. One coral polyp will divide itself again and again and again, leaving a limestone skeleton underneath itself and growing up toward the sun. Given hundreds of years and many species, what you get is a massive limestone structure that can be seen from space in many cases, covered by a thin skin of these hardworking animals. Now, there are only a few hundred species of corals on the planet, maybe 1,000. But these systems house millions and millions of other species, and that diversity is what stabilizes the systems, and it's where we're finding our new medicines. It's how we find new sources of food. I'm lucky enough to work on the island of Curaçao, where we still have reefs that look like this. But, indeed, much of the Caribbean and much of our world is much more like this.
Zamislite da možete da nađete mesto na kojem ćete živeti do kraja života kad ste stari samo dva dana. Pričvršćuju se za njima najpogodnije mesto, razvija im se skelet, kao i usta i pipci i onda kreću sa teškim poslom izgradnje koralnog grebena. Stalnim deljenjem, koralni polip ostavlja svoj krečnjački skelet ispod sebe i raste prema suncu. Uzimajući u obzir hiljade godina i mnoge vrste, stvara se ogromna krečnjačka struktura prekrivena tankom kožom ovih vrednih životinja koja se može nekad videti i iz svemira. Danas ima samo nekoliko stotina vrsta korala, možda hiljadu. Ali ti sistemi u sebi sadrže na milione drugih vrsta i ta raznovrsnost stabilizuje sisteme i omogućava nam da pronađemo nove lekove. Na taj način pronalazimo nove izvore hrane. Imam sreće što radim na ostrvu Kurasao, gde i dalje postoje ovakvi grebeni. Međutim, većina Karipskih ostrva kao i ostatak sveta izgleda ovako.
Scientists have studied in increasing detail the loss of the world's coral reefs, and they have documented with increasing certainty the causes. But in my research, I'm not interested in looking backward. My colleagues and I in Curaçao are interested in looking forward at what might be. And we have the tiniest reason to be optimistic. Because even in some of these reefs that we probably could have written off long ago, we sometimes see baby corals arrive and survive anyway. And we're starting to think that baby corals may have the ability to adjust to some of the conditions that the adults couldn't. They may be able to adjust ever so slightly more readily to this human planet. So in the research I do with my colleagues in Curaçao, we try to figure out what a baby coral needs in that critical early stage, what it's looking for and how we can try to help it through that process. I'm going to show you three examples of the work we've done to try to answer those questions.
Naučnici detaljno analiziraju nestanak koralnih grebena. I sa velikom sigurnošću saznali su razloge za nestanak. U svom istraživanju, ne zanima me ono što se pre desilo. Moje kolege i mene u Kurasau zanima ono što se može desiti u budućnosti. I imamo mali razlog za optimizam. Čak i na grebenima koje smo mogli da otpišemo pre mnogo godina možemo videti bebe korale koje dolaze i preživljavaju. I mislimo da bebe korali mogu da se adaptiraju uslovima koje odrasli korali ne mogu. Mogu da se adaptiraju za zrnce bolje od ostalih na ovoj planeti. Sa svojim kolegama u Kurasaou pokušavam da saznam šta je bebi koralu potrebno u toj kritičnoj fazi, šta je to što traži i kako možemo da mu pomognemo da to što mu treba nađe. Pokazaću vam tri primera onoga što istražujemo da bih odgovorila na ta pitanja.
A few years ago we took a 3D printer and we made coral choice surveys -- different colors and different textures, and we simply asked the coral where they preferred to settle. And we found that corals, even without the biology involved, still prefer white and pink, the colors of a healthy reef. And they prefer crevices and grooves and holes, where they will be safe from being trampled or eaten by a predator. So we can use this knowledge, we can go back and say we need to restore those factors -- that pink, that white, those crevices, those hard surfaces -- in our conservation projects. We can also use that knowledge if we're going to put something underwater, like a sea wall or a pier. We can choose to use the materials and colors and textures that might bias the system back toward those corals. Now in addition to the surfaces, we also study the chemical and microbial signals that attract corals to reefs. Starting about six years ago, I began culturing bacteria from surfaces where corals had settled. And I tried those one by one by one, looking for the bacteria that would convince corals to settle and attach. And we now have many bacterial strains in our freezer that will reliably cause corals to go through that settlement and attachment process. So as we speak, my colleagues in Curaçao are testing those bacteria to see if they'll help us raise more coral settlers in the lab, and to see if those coral settlers will survive better when we put them back underwater.
Pre par godina, 3D štampačem istraživali smo različite korale, raznih boja i tekstura, i pitali smo ih gde bi hteli da se nastane. Saznali smo da bez obzira na biologiju, i dalje žele koralne grebene u zdravoj beloj i roze boji. Žele pukotine, žlebove i rupe, gde mogu biti sigurni da neće biti oštećeni ili pojedeni. To znanje možemo iskoristiti, možemo se vratiti u prošlost da bi uslove kao što su, bela i roze boja, pukotine, tvrde površine uneli u projekte za očuvanje prirode. Možemo to znanje iskoristiti i staviti neki zid ili stub u vodu. Možemo da iskoristimo materijale, boje i teksture da bi ih korali prepoznali kao deo sistema. Zajedno sa spoljašnošću grebena, istražujemo i hemijske i mikrobne signale koji korale privlače grebenima. Pre oko 6 godina, počela sam da gajim bakterije koje žive tamo gde su su naselili korali. Jednu po jednu sam isprobavala, tražeći bakteriju koja bi privukla korale da se nastane i pričvrste. U frižideru, imamo mnogo bakterija koje će zasigurno navesti korale da se nastane i pričvrste na greben. Dok mi pričamo, moje kolege u Kurasaou testiraju te bakterije da bi saznali da li pomoću njih možemo uzgajati korale u laboratoriji, i da li će korali duže preživeti kad ih budemo vratili u vodu.
Now in addition to these tools, we also try to uncover the mysteries of species that are under-studied. This is one of my favorite corals, and always has been: dendrogyra cylindrus, the pillar coral. I love it because it makes this ridiculous shape, because its tentacles are fat and look fuzzy and because it's rare. Finding one of these on a reef is a treat. In fact, it's so rare, that last year it was listed as a threatened species on the endangered species list. And this was in part because in over 30 years of research surveys, scientists had never found a baby pillar coral. We weren't even sure if they could still reproduce, or if they were still reproducing.
Osim što se bavimo ovim, pokušavamo da otkrijemo zagonetne vrste koje nisu još istraživane. Ovo je za mene oduvek bio jedan od omiljenih korala: dendrogyra cylindrus tj. stubasti koral. Sviđa mi jer ima ovaj smešan oblik, jer su mu pipci debeli i nejasni i zato što je redak. Uživamo kad pronađemo jedan ovakav koral. Toliko je redak da se prošle godine našao na spisku ugroženih vrsta. To se delom desilo jer tokom 30 godina istraživanja naučnici nisu naišli na bebu stubastog korala. Nismo bili sigurni da li se mogu razmnožavati i da li se i dalje razmnožavaju.
So four years ago, we started following these at night and watching to see if we could figure out when they spawn in Curaçao. We got some good tips from our colleagues in Florida, who had seen one in 2007, one in 2008, and eventually we figured out when they spawn in Curaçao and we caught it. Here's a female on the left with some eggs in her tissue, about to release them into the seawater. And here's a male on the right, releasing sperm. We collected this, we got it back to the lab, we got it to fertilize and we got baby pillar corals swimming in our lab. Thanks to the work of our scientific aunts and uncles, and thanks to the 10 years of practice we've had in Curaçao at raising other coral species, we got some of those larvae to go through the rest of the process and settle and attach, and turn into metamorphosed corals. So this is the first pillar coral baby that anyone ever saw.
Pre četiri godine, počeli smo da ih noću pratimo kako bismo saznali kada se mreste u Kurasaou. Dobili smo dobre savete od kolega iz Floride, koji su videli jedan 2007. godine, a jedan 2008. godine. Na kraju smo saznali kada se mreste u Kurasaou i uhvatili smo ih. S leve strane je ženka, s nekoliko jaja na tkivu koje treba da izbaci u more. S desne strane je mužjak, koji izbacuje spermu. Skupili smo sve to, prebacili u laboratoriju da se oplode i dobili smo bebe stubastog korala koji plivaju u laboratoriji. Zahvaljujući radu naučnika pre nas, i zahvaljujući desetogodišnjoj praksi u Kurasaou, od kad su korali počeli da se gaje, dobili smo larve koje mogu da nastave proces, nastane se, pričvrste se za greben i pretvore se u metamorfozirane korale. Ovu prvu larvu stubastog korala do sad još niko nije video.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)
And I have to say -- if you think baby pandas are cute, this is cuter.
Moram da kažem, ako mislite da su bebe pande slatke, korali su još slađi.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
So we're starting to figure out the secrets to this process, the secrets of coral reproduction and how we might help them. And this is true all around the world; scientists are figuring out new ways to handle their embryos, to get them to settle, maybe even figuring out the methods to preserve them at low temperatures, so that we can preserve their genetic diversity and work with them more often. But this is still so low-tech. We are limited by the space on our bench, the number of hands in the lab and the number of coffees we can drink in any given hour.
Počinjemo da razumemo tajne ovog procesa, tajne razmnožavanja korala i kako možemo da im pomognemo. Ovo je tačno svuda u svetu: naučnici dolaze do novih načina kako da rade sa embrionima, kako da ih nastane, možda čak i kako da ih sačuvaju na niskim temperaturama da bismo mogli održati njihovu genetsku raznovrsnost i da bismo mogli s njima češće raditi. Sve ovo i sad nije na visokom nivou. Nedostaje nam mesta na našoj klupi, još ruku u laboratoriji, kao i još kafe koje treba popiti svakog dana.
Now, compare that to our other crises and our other areas of concern as a society. We have advanced medical technology, we have defense technology, we have scientific technology, we even have advanced technology for art. But our technology for conservation is behind. Think back to the most difficult job you ever did. Many of you would say it was being a parent. My mother described being a parent as something that makes your life far more amazing and far more difficult than you could've ever possibly imagined. I've been trying to help corals become parents for over 10 years now. And watching the wonder of life has certainly filled me with amazement to the core of my soul. But I've also seen how difficult it is for them to become parents. The pillar corals spawned again two weeks ago, and we collected their eggs and brought them back to the lab. And here you see one embryo dividing, alongside 14 eggs that didn't fertilize and will blow up. They'll be infected with bacteria, they will explode and those bacteria will threaten the life of this one embryo that has a chance. We don't know if it was our handling methods that went wrong and we don't know if it was just this coral on this reef, always suffering from low fertility. Whatever the cause, we have much more work to do before we can use baby corals to grow or fix or, yes, maybe save coral reefs.
Uporedite to sad sa drugim krizama i drugim brigama u društvu. Imamo razvijenu medicinsku tehnologiju, odbrambenu zaštitu, tehnologiju za prirodne nauke, čak imamo i razvijenu tehnologiju za umetnost. Ali tehnologija za održavanje prirode zaostaje za njima. Ponovo pomislite na najteži posao koji ste radili. Mnogi od vas reći će da je to roditeljstvo. Moja majka opisala je roditeljstvo kao nešto što život učini mnogo lepšim ali i mnogo težim od bilo čega drugog. Već deset godina, pokušavam da pomognem koralima da postanu roditelji. Gledajući čudo života, zadivljenost obuzima svu moju dušu. Ali videla sam i koliko im je teško da postanu roditelji. Stubasti korali mrestili su se pre dve sedmice. Skupili smo njihova jaja, i odneli ih u laboratoriju. I sad vidite kako se embrion razdvaja, i 14 jaja koja nisu oplođena i koja će nestati. Bakterije će ih zaraziti, eksplodiraće i te bakterija će ugroziti život ovog jednog embriona koji ima šansu da nastavi sa životom. Ne znamo da li smo pogrešili u našim metodama. Ne znamo da li samo ovaj koral na ovom grebenu uvek ima problem s oplođenjem. Koji god da je razlog, imamo još puno posla dok bebe korali ne budu mogli da rastu i pop rave ili možda spasu koralne grebene.
So never mind that they're worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Coral reefs are hardworking animals and plants and microbes and fungi. They're providing us with art and food and medicine. And we almost took out an entire generation of corals. But a few made it anyway, despite our best efforts, and now it's time for us to thank them for the work they did and give them every chance they have to raise the coral reefs of the future, their coral babies.
Nemojte se obazirati na to što vrede milijarde dolara. Koralni grebeni su vredne životinje, biljke, mikrobi i gljive. One nam daju umetnost, hranu i lekove. A mi smo skoro uništili celu generaciju korala. Ali nekoliko je preživelo, bez obzira na naše najteže napore, sad je vreme da im zahvalimo na svom njihovom radu i da im pružimo svaku priliku da grade koralne grebene u budućnosti, svoje larve korala.
Thank you so much.
Hvala vam mnogo.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)