8 minute read
Alumni News: A Bold New Vision for Saving the World’s Coral
An Interview with Sam Teicher ’02
By Allison Evans
AE | Why is it important to save the coral reefs?
ST | Coral reefs are dying at alarming rates. Over the past several decades, more than 50% of global coral reefs have died. By 2050, that number is projected to reach more than 90 percent. This ecological tragedy, which threatens 25 percent of all marine life, is also a serious socioeconomic catastrophe. Coral reefs directly support up to one billion people globally and conservatively generate $30 billion annually via tourism, fisheries production, and coastal protection. Reef degradation threatens fishing communities and their families, coastal residents exposed to more powerful storm surges, and industries and national economies dependent on the draw of reef attractions.
AE | What is the origin story of Coral Vita?
ST | The deepest roots of Coral Vita lie in my lifelong love for the ocean. My parents got my brother Seth (also a Lowell alum) and me scuba certifications for our bar mitzvahs. There’s no other place I’d rather be than exploring underwater worlds. Together with my parents raising us on the principle of Tikkun Ha-Olam (Repair of the World), I was always drawn toward fixing problems. As I grew older, this ranged from public education reform to Middle East peacemaking to eventually climate change.
During my senior year of college, I got into the master’s program at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies (F&ES). I decided to take a gap year and ended up launching the environmental branch of ELI Africa, my college buddy’s nonprofit in Mauritius. While there, I partnered with the Mauritius Oceanography Institute to get United Nations funding to launch a small-scale coral reef restoration project. It was simply amazing to see life return to barren seascapes, so much so that fishermen were setting up their traps a hundred yards away in areas they’d stopped fishing years before.
Unfortunately, the existing restoration model doesn’t scale to counter the global challenge. Largely carried out by NGOs and marine institutes, restoration efforts are limited to small-scale projects that depend on variable grants and donations. In addition to only being able to grow small numbers of coral, the limited funding also restricts such endeavors to underwater oceanbased nurseries. These ocean-based projects usually only rear fast-growing coral species, can do little to enhance coral resiliency to climate change threats, are jeopardized by storms or boating accidents, and must be established near each restoration site.
After starting up my graduate studies, I became friends with my classmate Gator Halpern. One of the things we bonded over was our shared feeling that public policy, academia, and NGOs weren’t solving some of the most urgent environmental crises at the scale and urgency required. Together, we came to believe that starting up a missiondriven for-profit could revolutionize coral reef restoration, unlocking a model to sustainably finance large-scale projects.
What if customers that depend on reefs’ immense tourism, fisheries, and coastal protection value paid to restore dying reefs? We developed a business plan, recruited some of the world’s leading coral scientists as our advisors (using their microfragmenting and assisted evolution methods to grow coral up to fifty times faster while strengthening their resiliency to climate change), and ultimately raised a $1.5 million seed round from angel investors to launch our dream of an ocean of healthy reefs for future generations.
AE | How did you settle on the Bahamas for building a coral farm?
ST | One of the biggest innovations of Coral Vita’s approach is our commercial model. While the science we use had been proven out, Gator and I needed a place to showcase our proof-ofconcept. This required an area with degraded coral reefs, optimal conditions for restoring them, and market opportunities for people to pay for restoration.
We decided to start in the Caribbean, which both needs help (80 percent of the region’s reefs are dead) and has a popular scuba and snorkel tourism industry, and began exploring several options. Eventually, we met Rupert Hayward—the Executive Director of the Grand Bahama Port Authority— actually through my brother Seth. Rupert has a vision for sustainable development in Grand Bahama, and together with the right ecological restoration conditions and incentives from the GBPA, like free land for our pilot coral farm, it ended up being a no-brainer.
AE | When you came to Lowell to talk to the 6th grade last year, you were about to move to the Bahamas—how are things going?
ST | I moved to Grand Bahama in March 2018 with the rest of my team. All in all, things are going really well. I’ll say that ’island time’ is very much a real thing. For example, due to unexpected and unfortunate delays in the permitting process, we ended up breaking ground on our farm in November rather than June.
That being said, we just broke ground on the world’s first-ever commercial land-based coral farm for reef restoration! The community has been so warm and welcoming, and we are planning to launch coral farming operations this spring.
AE | Coral Vita has gained some public recognition. Can you tell us about the awards you have earned?
ST | The work Gator and I set out to do through Coral Vita was and remains a big and bold goal, and we feel incredibly grateful for the support we’ve received along the way. Since founding the company in 2015, we’ve been recognized as Forbes 30 Under 30 Social Entrepreneurs, were accepted into competitive fellowship programs like Echoing Green, the JMK Innovation Prize, and the Halcyon Incubator, made it to the WeWork Creator Awards Global Finals, won the Ocean Exchange’s 2018 Neptune Award, and helped launch the Saving Coral Reefs XPRIZE. Gator was named one of seven United Nations Young Champions of the Earth, and I was chosen as both a Wild Gift Fellow and as one of 22 Climate Trailblazers at the Global Climate Action Summit.
AE | What is next for you and for Coral Vita?
I’m so excited to launch our first coral farm in the coming months. As we grow a few thousand corals per year to restore local reefs in Grand Bahama, we’ll also open up the farm as both an ecotourism attraction (where guests can see us working, adopt corals, or even plant them with our team) and an education center for local communities.
Once we’ve demonstrated progress with our proof-of-concept, we plan to scale up and begin launching farms in every country and territory with reefs, each growing millions of corals annually. This would be the largest restoration initiative in the world, and hopefully can help preserve coral reefs for future generations.
AE | What can you tell us about your journey from Lowell to Yale and a master’s degree in forestry and environmental sciences?
ST | Lowell gave me an amazing foundation for my later years in life. Creativity, problem solving, empathy, and learning to lead by working with others were all values and skills that Lowell imparted to me. When I left after 3rd grade (the year before the Kalmia campus opened), I went to Murch, Deal, and finally Wilson. The combination of Lowell and DC Public Schools was a great balance between experiential education and growing up with a diverse group of friends from across the city. I went to Yale for college and eventually got my Master of Environmental Management degree from Yale F&ES. It’s there where I had the idea to launch Coral Vita with Gator.
AE | What advice do you have for current Lowell students—thinkers and innovators like you, who are out to change the world?
ST | Hockey great Wayne Gretzky famously said, “You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take.” Whether it’s reaching out to an investor for time to pitch your idea, asking a question to your role model, or applying for that almost impossible school or prize, usually the worst thing that can happen is they don’t respond or they say no. Which, at the end of the day, is the same result as not going for it—so why not shoot your shot?
I’ve been very fortunate to have had a lifelong support network of parents and family, teachers, and advocates. Use the blessings you have, and then do your best to create your own opportunities and moments of serendipity.
Leading requires learning how to follow and work with others. Employ empathy, ask for help, nourish creativity, and make sure to take time to be a good friend to yourself.
