Eilat is well-known as a vibrant center of tourism. The numerous tourists have helped to develop the city. Tourist attractions and hotels are built along the beachfront. The sea is full of life and thousands of bathers throng the beaches. The gulf is full of snorkelers, divers, sailboats and motor boats plying the waters. Unfortunately, this mass of activity causes damage to the marine flora and fauna. The coral reef in the Gulf of Eilat has decreased in size over the past 50 years; and sadly, only 2.5 km remain today of the original 10 km breathtaking coral beauty. Dust and mud clouds wash out to sea from shoreline construction and development projects. Sand brought in to create more beachfront is of a type unsuitable for this region. Inexperienced divers break off bits of coral while they are diving. Ships and boats damage the reefs from above. Illegal fishing, sewage flowing into the gulf – all these are among the many environmental hazards damaging the coral reef. Coral is a living thing whose calcium-carbonate skeleton forms colonies in the sea. The rate of coral growth is just a few centimeters per year. Thus a colony of several dozen centimeters may take decades or even centuries to grow. These coral colonies create the amazing reefs in the depths of the sea. Each injury to the coral contributes to the serious damage which we observe, whether by burying it in suffocating layers of sand, or by breaking off bits of coral, which weakens the reef and exposes it to disease. The coral reefs are breeding ground for thousands of sea creatures. Fish and other sea life have adapted themselves to life within and around the coral reef. The reef provides their nourishment, shelter and the appropriate conditions for development. All this richness of life is gradually disappearing, along with the reef. One of the more important roles undertaken by the Underwater Observatory Marine Park in Eilat is to take the lead in the protection and rehabilitation of marine flora and fauna, and at the top of this list, the protection and rehabilitation of the coral reef in the Gulf of Eilat. For many years now, the park's divers have been collecting broken coral bits found in the gulf and, despite the difficulties, we have succeeded in growing hundreds of young and healthy coral colonies. The coral is nurtured in aquariums and special pools under optimal environmental conditions: lighting, water flow, food, temperatures and neighboring coral. In recent years, this project has been carried out with the participation of Eilat's children. At the beginning of the school year, each 5th and 6th grader receives a coral fragment to be photographed and measured. Each fragment is numbered and listed on a special chart. Throughout the year, the children care for their fragments, cleaning the aquarium, feeding the coral and tracking its recovery. Sometimes the children must cope with the fact that some of the fragments do not survive. Through this project, the children learn to identify various types of coral as well as learning about coral's fragility and special needs. The project's peak is reached at the end of the school year when the children take part in a 'happening'. The pupils and their families gather at the Underwater Observatory Marine Park. Hundreds of pupils watch from the glass-bottomed boats and the observatory windows as the park's divers dive below and attach the rescued coral to the reef, using a special coral adhesive. The pupils often return to see the rescued coral grow. As of today thousands of coral fragments have been rehabilitated and returned to Eilat's coral reef.

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