Olowalu reef may be an example of how to survive climate change disaster — just 4 miles from the epicenter of the August 2023 Maui fire. Olowalu reef may be an example of how to survive climate change disaster — just 4 miles from the epicenter of the August 2023 Maui fire. Olowalu reef may be an example of how to survive climate change disaster — just 4 miles from the epicenter of the August 2023 Maui fire.
Maui artist Michiko Smith grew up in Lahaina. After a deadly wildfire leveled much of her coastal town and destroyed her apartment, Smith took stock and decided to reprioritize her life. The 30-year-old continues to make art from marine debris, mainly “ghost nets” cast adrift from fishing vessels.
But making her beloved West Maui more resilient to climate-fueled disasters has become Smith’s obsession. After enrolling in a marine studies program at University of Hawaii Maui College, she discovered the Super Reefs project. A partnership of Stanford University , Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and The Nature Conservancy , the research aims to determine why some coral reefs are resilient to ocean warming, perhaps able to survive climate change.
Nearly half of the world’s coral reefs have died since the 1950s. Besides ocean heat, reefs face threats from overfishing, polluted run-off, ocean acidification and other human-caused stressors. But there’s hope.
And it may lie at Olowalu, just 4 miles from the epicenter of the August 2023 Maui fire that killed 102 pe.
