Reefs on the Edge: The Slow, Hidden Collapse Beneath Rapa Nui’s Waters

This reporting project investigates the alarming and largely invisible collapse of deep-sea coral reefs surrounding Rapa Nui (Easter Island), the world's most isolated inhabited island.

This investigation documents the drastic ecological shift in the waters near Hanga Roa, the island's main town. Starting in 2014, a scientific team from Chile's Oceanographic Island Ecology and Sustainable Management Center (ESMOI), led by oceanographer Javier Sellanes, began recording severe reef degradation. In areas where historic divers, such as Michel García—a collaborator of Jacques Cousteau in the 1970s—once described as healthy, white seafloors, all that remains today is a dark landscape. The reefs are covered by tapestries of filamentous algae, which have displaced the coral as a consequence of climate change and human pressures.

Journalist Barinia Montoya Montenegro uses reef photography, video, and audio to bring this hidden crisis to the surface. This project explores how this rapid collapse directly affects the local Rapa Nui community and the island’s unique biodiversity. This is an urgent case study that shows how even the most remote oceanic ecosystems are on the front lines of the global climate crisis.