The watchmaker is throwing its weight behind a mission to restore marine ecosystems—proof that profound change can happen when brands get behind a grassroots movement.
Grassroots movements have long been an especially impactful way to grow an organisation— something that runs through the DNA of Coral Gardeners. The ocean conservation group was started by “island kids with big dreams”—namely Titouan Bernicot (pictured above), who was born and raised on a small French Polynesian atoll, where his parents cultivated Tahitian pearls—and has grown into a global collective of young ocean advocates, doing their part to fight the prospect of facing full coral extinction by 2050.
Four years ago, Coral Gardeners caught the attention of Rolex, whose Perpetual Planet Initiative has long focused on safeguarding the oceans and tackling climate change. The Swiss watchmaker notably works with individuals and organisations who are using science to meet environmental challenges, as well as international institutions like Mission Blue and the National Geographic Society.
Founder and CEO Bernicot describes Coral Gardeners as a movement “born at the crossroads of Polynesian heritage, art, cuttingedge science and just a touch of punk rock”. The organisation is committed to rewilding oceans by planting resilient corals that have been developed by top engineers and scientists in its CG Labs. Coral growth is consistently monitored, and will get a boost from ReefOS, the association’s state-of-the-art technology that connects reefs to smartphones and computers to optimise scale and efficiency. Coral Gardeners currently has planted more than 200,000 corals in nurseries and reefs, plus established two international branches beyond its initial home in French Polynesia.
Thanks to Rolex, which had helped to support an initial land-based nursery in Thailand – a launching pad for Asia – Bernicot’s vision can be scaled even further across the globe. And awareness is spreading. The collective has among the largest social media presences of any reef conservation company, their content reaching over 200 million people in just over five years. Its youthful energy and “touch of punk rock” has empowered local communities, now armed with the most advanced environmental science, and individuals too. With a few clicks at home, one can become involved by adopting a coral online and tracking its GPS location and growth.
Coral Gardeners offers a poignant lesson on how to organically grow an initiative from the ground up. “We’re not all marine biologists but we have spent thousands of hours under the surface,” says Bernicot. “We see things, we observe things, we learn things.”
