Expanding the reef 🪸 Between January and June 2026, the Project Laut team deployed 33 new coral restoration structures, carrying 594 coral fragments, adding approximately 10.89 m² of newly restored reef area. The site now totals 1,033 structures across ~348 m². That is roughly 1.5 tennis courts of reef and coral survival across the full site remains above 95%.

A milestone: natural recruitment 💪 For the first time, the team documented naturally recruited coral within the restoration area — recruits from the Acropora and Porites genera, settling and growing independently of transplantation. This is one of the strongest indicators of long-term restoration success: it shows the site is beginning to support its own reproductive cycle, not just the corals we've physically placed.

Maintaining the site 🧹 The team completed 36 dedicated maintenance outings during the period, totaling approximately 144 person-hours of in-water work — checking structures, monitoring coral condition, and identifying stress or damage early.

Fish biodiversity monitoring 📈 In January 2026, Project Laut launched its first consistent fish biodiversity monitoring program. Ten surveys across the first six months recorded 106 distinct fish species, establishing a 2026 baseline against which future changes in the reef's fish community can be measured.

Megafauna sightings 🦈 Between June and July 2026, the team recorded 6 turtle sightings and 2 whitetip reef shark sightings — encouraging signs of larger species using the developing habitat.

A challenge, and a recovery 🌡️ In April 2026, the site experienced an elevated-temperature event, with surface water temperatures reaching approximately 31°C. Around 20% of restoration structures showed some degree of bleaching, most visibly in Acropora and Echinopora colonies — with structures deployed in March/April among the most affected. While some coral mortality occurred, the majority of affected colonies have since shown signs of recovery. The event offered a valuable window into how transplanted corals respond to thermal stress, and monitoring is ongoing to track differences in recovery across cohorts.

Looking ahead 🔜 For the rest of 2026, the team will focus on: continued structure deployment, maintenance and bleaching recovery monitoring, growing the fish biodiversity baseline, tracking the naturally recruited corals, and building a longer-term dataset on ecological function across the site.