The Red Bulletin April 2021 (US)

Deep concerns: 22-year-old Taiano Teiho (left) and one of his fellow Coral Gardeners set off on a restoration mission.
Each time freediver Guillaume
Néry disappears into the
underwater world, he learns
something new. It is this
seemingly limitless potential
for exploration that fuels the
Frenchman’s passion. And
being underwater gives Néry a feeling
he can’t find on land. “It’s this sense of
zero gravity,” he says. “When I’m
descending, there’s a moment when
I’m suspended in space and time, and
it really feels like I’m flying. There’s a
sense of freedom—it’s transformative.
I’m switching from a landbound human
to an aquatic one.”
This desire to learn is what has drawn
Néry to the island paradise of Mo’orea,
around 25 miles from Tahiti in the South
Pacific. That and something else unique
to the underwater world: coral. For the
past seven years, the 38-year-old has
come here with his partner—fellow
freediver Julie Gautier—and daughter
Maï-Lou, whom the couple want to raise
close to nature. “I’m lucky enough to
have been freediving for more than
24 years now,” says Néry, who has four
freediving depth world records and two
world championship titles to his name.
“I’ve traveled the world, had experiences
in every kind of underwater environment,
from oceans to lakes, under ice. But
there’s really something special about
tropical areas. It’s the biodiversity you
witness, especially here in French
Polynesia. The extraordinary examples
of life you find underwater here are
almost all due to the coral reef system.
It’s an entire, complex ecosystem. It’s
really something amazing to witness.”
But when Néry visited in 2019, after
a rise in water temperature caused by
global warming, he found that 30 percent
of the coral had died. “Dead coral is
monochrome,” he says. “There’s no color.
It’s a place with no life at all, like a desert.
Sometimes you’ll see a fish pass by, but it’s
only looking for somewhere else to go. I
knew this global warming episode wasn’t
natural; it was due to human activity. The
scientists say there will be more episodes
like that. The ocean is resilient, but there’s
a limit. If things change too fast, there’s a
big chance most of the world’s coral will
disappear. When I realized that, I was
terrified.” Now his visits here have become
about more than underwater exploration;
he’s fighting for the reef’s survival.
Néry is working with an organization
known as the Coral Gardeners, who, as
the name suggests, tend to and cultivate
coral. They have shown Néry how to
replant broken coral, and in return he has
taught the group breathing techniques
that allow them to remain underwater
for longer periods while they work. This
is a symbiotic relationship that the Coral
Gardeners—a team of young Polynesian
60 THE RED BULLETIN