Like underwater condominiums, coral reefs play a fundamental role as shelters for marine species—65% of the sea's fish are found in them. Ensuring the preservation, reproduction, and recovery of these living beings threatened by climate change has become a challenge for environmentalists.
Off the coast of Pernambuco, tanks in laboratories and "coral factories" on the seafloor have become refuges for creating corals that are later transferred to other points along the Northeast coast.
In Brazil, corals cover about 3,000 km along the coast. Only from southern Bahia to Maranhão, they occupy an area of approximately 170 km2.
One of the country's marine environmental protection areas is located in Tamandaré, on the southern coast of Pernambuco, 104 km from Recife. The city also houses the Cepene (Center for Research and Conservation of Marine Biodiversity in the Northeast), where biologists and oceanographers monitor the local biodiversity.
Named the Costa dos Corais Environmental Protection Area, it is the largest federal coastal marine conservation unit in Brazil, founded in 1997. Its area covers more than 4,000 km2, along 120 km of beaches and mangroves.