Qualla: Réunion's Coral Reef

Réunion's Coral Reef: Introduction

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Thierry Caro assumed (based on copyright claims)., Public domain. From the air it looks like a brushstroke of pale jade laid against deep blue ink. A thin band of living coral hugs Réunion's western shore, holding back the open Indian Ocean and cupping a lagoon so shallow and clear that snorkelers drift over it in water barely deeper than a bathtub. The reef runs for more than nine kilometers between Saint-Leu and Saint-Gilles, narrowing to fifty meters at its northern tip and swelling to six hundred in the south. It is the only true coral reef on an island otherwise ringed by sheer volcanic drop-offs - and that sharp line between calm lagoon and plunging deep is the key to everything that happens here, from the abundance of fish to the danger lurking just past the foam.

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Image: No machine-readable author provided. Thierry Caro assumed (based on copyright claims). | Public domain

Réunion's Coral Reef: A Wall Built by Animals

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit B.navez, CC BY-SA 3.0. A coral reef is not rock but a city of animals, each polyp a soft creature no larger than a pinhead that builds a limestone skeleton around itself and catches drifting plankton with tiny tentacles. Generation by generation, those skeletons pile into a barrier strong enough to bre...

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Image: B.navez | CC BY-SA 3.0

Réunion's Coral Reef: The Lagoon and Its Reserve

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit The original uploader was Elapied at French Wikipedia., CC BY-SA 2.0 fr. For generations the lagoon has been Réunion's playground, the one stretch of Indian Ocean gentle enough for children. Snorkelers follow a marked underwater trail off L'Hermitage, gliding past parrotfish and surgeonfish among the branching Acropora. In 2007 France drew a protectiv...

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Image: The original uploader was Elapied at French Wikipedia. | CC BY-SA 2.0 fr

Réunion's Coral Reef: A Reef Under Pressure

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit B.navez, CC BY-SA 3.0. Coral is exquisitely sensitive. It thrives only in a narrow band between roughly 23 and 28 degrees Celsius, and when the water warms past that, the polyps expel the algae that color and feed them, turning ghost-white in the process known as bleaching - already visible on Réunion'...

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Image: B.navez | CC BY-SA 3.0

Réunion's Coral Reef: The Shadow Beyond the Breakers

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit B.navez, CC BY-SA 3.0. Beyond the reef crest, where the lagoon spills into open ocean, the water turns suddenly dangerous. Between 2011 and 2019, Réunion endured one of the most concentrated runs of shark attacks anywhere on Earth - around thirty, eleven of them fatal, a toll that accounted for nearly ...

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Image: B.navez | CC BY-SA 3.0