A teenager’s 4-H project helped spark a coral restoration revolution in the Florida Keys—how Ken Nedimyer turned broken coral fragments into thousands of new reef colonies

For decades, the Florida Keys were home to vast underwater thickets of staghorn and elkhorn coral. Divers once described some parts of the Florida Reef Tract as so crowded with branching corals that they could swim through them almost like an underwater forest.

Then the corals began disappearing. Disease, coral bleaching and powerful storms devastated reefs across the Florida Keys, with some staghorn and elkhorn coral populations falling by nearly 90%. Restoring them would require more than protecting the remaining colonies. Scientists and conservationists needed a practical way to grow large numbers of corals and return them to damaged reefs.

An unlikely solution began with a father helping his daughter with a 4-H project.


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It started with a father-daughter 4-H project

Ken Nedimyer, a tropical fish collector and aquaculture operator in the Florida Keys, had spent much of his life diving the local reefs. He had watched the underwater ecosystem change dramatically over the years.

Around 2000, his daughter needed a project for her 4-H Youth Development program. Nedimyer decided to draw on his experience with marine life and aquaculture.

Together, they began experimenting with broken pieces of staghorn coral.

Instead of allowing fragments that had broken from nearby reefs to die on the seafloor, they kept them alive and encouraged them to grow.

The experiment worked.

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Nedimyer eventually donated the propagated coral to the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary for use in reef restoration. A grant from The Nature Conservancy then helped him expand the project, transforming what had started as a small family experiment into a much larger coral-growing operation.

The question became simple: If a few coral fragments could grow successfully, could thousands be grown deliberately?

The coral trees changed the restoration game

In 2007, Nedimyer founded the Coral Restoration Foundation in Key Largo.

His team developed offshore coral nurseries where coral fragments were suspended from structures known as coral trees. Instead of growing directly on the ocean floor, the branching corals were raised in controlled nursery environments before being returned to damaged reef sites.

The results were striking.

A fragment roughly the size of a finger could reportedly grow into a basketball-sized colony in just six to nine months.

Once the colonies became large enough, divers could cut pieces from them and attach those fragments to deteriorated reef areas.

That created a cycle: grow coral, divide it, outplant it, and grow more.

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From a small experiment to thousands of corals

The approach offered something desperately needed in coral restoration: scale.

Rather than waiting years for damaged reefs to recover naturally, restoration teams could grow coral fragments in nurseries and then move them onto degraded reefs when they were strong enough.

Research later provided important evidence about how these restoration efforts performed in different locations.

A PLOS ONE study examining Coral Restoration Foundation outplanting projects from 2007 to 2015 tracked 2,419 coral colonies placed throughout the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. Survivorship varied considerably depending on location and conditions, ranging from 4% to 89% among the longest-monitored groups.

That variability helped restoration organizations understand that choosing the right reef site and restoration strategy could make a major difference.

The idea spread far beyond the Florida Keys

Nedimyer's work eventually attracted international attention. In 2012, CNN named him a CNN Hero for his coral restoration efforts.

By 2022, the Coral Restoration Foundation had planted more than 200,000 corals, according to NPR.

Some restored reefs also began showing an especially encouraging sign: the nursery-grown corals were reproducing naturally.

That suggested restoration could go beyond simply placing individual colonies back onto damaged reefs. Under the right conditions, restored corals could become part of functioning reef communities.

Nedimyer later became involved with Reef Renewal International, helping take the coral tree nursery approach beyond Florida.

The model has since been used at reef restoration sites in places including Bonaire, Curaçao, Saint Vincent, the Cayman Islands, Hawaii, French Polynesia and Australia.

A school project became a global restoration model

The story of Florida's coral restoration effort is a reminder that major environmental ideas do not always begin inside laboratories or government programs.

This one began with a father, his daughter and a 4-H project.

What started with a handful of broken coral fragments eventually developed into an approach used by restoration teams across multiple oceans.

The Florida Reef Tract still faces enormous challenges from warming seas, disease, bleaching and storms. But the coral trees pioneered through Nedimyer's early work demonstrated that damaged reefs could be given another chance—one fragment at a time.