Tatoosh (photo above), the 91-meter megayacht (the 43rd largest in the world) owned by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, destroyed 80 percent of the reef of the West Bay Marine Reserve on Cayman Island during a maneuver. The coral was washed away by the boat chain. The multimillionaire defends himself by saying that it was the Port Authority that pointed him to the area where he should give anchor.
MULTON? CHANGE FOR THE TYCOON!
The wealthy 63-year-old now faces a fine of $600,000, a pittance for one of the world’s richest men with a fortune estimated by Forbes magazine at $17.4 billion-the incident, however, threatens to sling mud at his image as a staunch environmentalist. Ironically, Bill Gates’ former partner has established a foundation to protect the marine ecosystem and against intensive fishing.
ALLEN DESTROYS, SCIENTISTS RECREATE
Fortunately, to the damage at the hands of the American tycoon there may already be a solution. Researchers at the Secore Foundation (an acronym for Sexual Coral Reproduction), a network of marine biologists based in the United States, have announced that corals of the endangered species Acropora palmata, birthed in the laboratory by biologists through artificial insemination, have been shown to survive once reintroduced into their habitat, and more importantly, to be able to reproduce in the wild. This is really important news from the perspective of coral repopulation and biodiversity: suffice it to say that, multimillionaire coral reef-killers aside, we have lost 80% of the Caribbean in the last 40 years!
