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PRESS RELEASE

Third Biorock® Bali Workshop
Planned for November

Cambridge, MA, June 10, 2005, Global Coral Reef Alliance, Sun & Sea e.V., and Yayasan Karang Lestari have announced the Third Biorock®   Reef Restoration Workshop at Taman Sari Resort, Pemuteran, Bali, November 21-28, 2005.

Workshop participants will experience hands-on training in the simple techniques to design, construct, install, maintain, monitor, and repair Biorock® reef nurseries.

The Biorock®  Process, or mineral accretion, is a revolutionary technology that grows structures and marine ecosystems in seawater.  It provides a cost-effective and sustainable method to accelerate coral growth and greatly increase coral survival from environmental stress. 

Biorock® methods can restore damaged coral reefs, allow highly productive mariculture of corals, oysters, clams, lobsters, and fish, protect shorelines, and provide building materials from sustainable energy.

The workshop will be conducted by Dr. Tom Goreau, President, Global Coral Reef Alliance and Professor Wolf Hilbertz, President of Sun and Sea e.V., as well as several Biorock®  project managers and staff. 

The workshop will take place at the site of the Karang Lestari Project, the world’s largest Biorock® installation, in Pemuteran, Bali, Indonesia. Karang Lestari has won the 2005 Association of South East Asian Nations Tourism Agencies Award for Excellence and the 2005 Pacific Asia Travel Association Gold Award for best environmental effort, as well as many other Indonesian and international awards.

Who Should Attend
Dive shop operators, hotel and resort managers, conservation groups, coastal zone managers, fishing communities, marine scientists, mariculturists, tourism agencies, seascape and landscape architects, engineers, artists, government fisheries, environmental, and tourism policy makers, and others who seek the training necessary to design, construct and operate their own Biorock®  structures for reef restoration, erosion control, tourism, mariculture, remediation or marine science. 

Biorock®  technology
Application of a safe low-voltage electrical current through seawater causes dissolved limestone to crystallize and grow rock structures similar to coral reefs.  Biorock® methods speed up coral growth and survival from excessive temperatures, pollution, sedimentation and other stresses and provide superior habitat for fish and shellfish.

The Workshop Sponsors
The Global Coral Reef Alliance is a Cambridge, Massachusetts non-profit organization dedicated to growing, protecting and managing the most threatened of all marine ecosystems-coral reefs.  GCRA has pioneered methodologies to help reefs survive and recover from diseases and anthropogenic damage caused by excessive nutrients, climate change and physical destruction.

Sun and Sea e.V. Is a Hamburg non-profit organization dedicated to developing new technologies to grow building materials.

Yayasan Karang Lestari is a Bali non-profit organization for coral reef restoration and community-based fisheries management.

The complete Biorock®  workshop program is available at: Third Biorock® Workshop Program.htm

Contact:
Dr. Thomas J. Goreau
President
Global Coral Reef Alliance
37 Pleasant Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA
Telephone:  617-864-4226, 617-864-0433
E-mail:           goreau@bestweb.net
Web site:        http://www.globalcoral.org

Links:
 Global Warming and Coral Reefs, Thomas J Goreau, openDemocracy, May 31, 2005

Biorock® the Electric Advantage, Asian Geographic, Issue 2, 2005

BBC Program on Global Warming and GCRA Reefs, BBC, September, 22, 2004

Biorock® is a trademark of Biorock®, Inc.  The Biorock® Process is owned by Biorock®, Inc.

For more information on the Biorock® process and the workshop please see the Global Coral Reef Alliance website:   http://www.globalcoral.org