George Holliday

Marine Biologist Steve Simpson

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George

Steve has gone to coral reefs around the world that are struggling, dying out and what he and his team have been experimenting with is recording sounds of healthy coral reefs, and then playing them in the water back to unhealthy coral reefs then seeing what happens. Incredibly many unhealthy coral reefs are literally thriving with life again, they're coming back to life just from the sound of healthy coral reefs. And so the next step is gathering all the sounds across the world of healthy underwater soundscapes and then mashing them all together to almost create a world that's not real but sounds healthy. He's travelling around the great barrier reefs and trying to see what brings them back to life. The tech is so simple. It's a little underwater microphone that's very affordable. It's being played back through an underwater speaker that they use for synchronised swimming so it's all very accessible gear and I'm thinking this is something in theory people could do themselves in their own areas. But not only that, it's giving people the opportunity to hear fish, I've never heard fish before until now. Steve's very up for working with everybody and anybody because his pure goal is for the benefit of nature and bringing it back to where it was before we started interfering. And I think if you're willing to put all of that on the line, all of your ego aside to to help the world. I just think that's an incredible project.

Climate and Environment

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