The Red Bulletin April 2021 (US)

at the Great Barrier Reef, at the Florida
Keys, in Indonesia, Egypt, the Maldives.
Second, I learned that the coral, these
little organisms, gave me everything I
need in my life. From the best moments
surfing reef-break waves, freediving and
swimming with sharks, to the fish we
eat—the reef feeds my family and my
community. It also brings tourism and
develops our economy. It protects our
coastline by acting as a coastal protection
barrier, stopping 97 percent of the waves’
energy, preventing erosion. Coral reefs
are also home to a quarter of all the
species we know of in the ocean. Reefs are
like the rainforests of the sea. Scientists
estimate that 70 percent of the oxygen we
breathe comes from a healthy ocean. The
most shocking thing? Almost no one on
our island realized this. That’s why the
Coral Gardeners exist.”
That day, Bernicot decided he would
devote his life to helping protect the
coral around his island. On the beach,
he met a local who was replanting
broken coral and showed him how to
do it. Bernicot set to work on his own
underwater garden. Next, he sought
advice from marine biologists working at
Mo’orea’s two scientific research centers:
the Gump Research Station, administered
by the University of California, Berkeley;
and the preeminent French institution
CRIOBE (Center for Island Research
and Environmental Observatory), which
has facilitated the study of marine life
in Polynesia for more than 30 years and
now works in partnership with the Coral
Gardeners. But what they told Bernicot
wasn’t what he wanted to hear. “I knocked
on the doors of all the scientific and
research institutions,” he says. “Everyone
told me to finish high school, then do a
three-year biology degree, then a master’s
in marine biology and then, ‘If you’re
sharp enough, go and do a Ph.D.’ There’s
a real need for scientists—today, we work
hand-in-hand with them—but that’s just
not me. I’m more of an entrepreneur.
I told them they were crazy, I couldn’t
do that. It killed my motivation.”
It was actually a stint away from his
island home that eventually gave
birth to the Coral Gardeners. Feeling
defeated, an 18-year-old Bernicot
consented to his parents’ wishes that
he study business in the southwest of
France. He lasted two weeks. “I couldn’t
stand it,” he says. “There I was, all alone
in my little apartment in Bordeaux. I’d
left my island family, my dogs, my
friends, my corals. I called my parents
and said, ‘Sorry, but I won’t be going
back to school.’ They told me, ‘Titouan,
we believe in you, but you won’t have
any more money from us now. You have
to support yourself.’ That was a shock.”
Bernicot decided he would somehow
pay back his parents the €7,000 they’d
spent on his business course, then return
to Mo’orea to try to help save the coral
reef. Aptly, it was the South Pacific Ocean
that provided the means: Tahitian pearls.
“I went to the business center of the town
and created a jewelry company the next
day. I went to every hotel, every winery,
every house, to sell my Tahitian pearls.”
With the earnings, he paid his parents,
his rent, then took a surf trip to Morocco.
His remaining money went into founding
the Coral Gardeners in 2017, following
his return to Mo’orea. “I still didn’t know
it could be my life plan or my career,” he
says. “There was no business model to
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