Outside the aquarium trade, managers, government, conservation-minded groups and scientists are also beginning to take note of coral farming's potential uses for various purposes. Several recent publications highlight and acknowledge the desirability of coral farming. A passage from the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force's, "Proposed National Action Strategy: Proposed Actions and Strategies to Address Key Threats states:
"The following actions are offered to address concerns:
Expand and strengthen capacity building efforts in countries with coral reefs to enforce relevant laws and regulations, collect trade data, and develop and implement sustainable management plans, certification schemes, and alternative harvest practices such as aquaculture and coral farming."
The use of novel methods of restoration, rehabilitation and replenishment using propagated corals has also been mentioned in statements from the International Coral Reef Initiative, the Proceedings of the Caribbean Acroporid Workshop, and numerous other publications. I have recently reviewed several articles that directly relate to the aquarium-based culture of corals for restoration, and other articles have appeared sporadically throughout the years, many of them by well-known professional aquarists of public aquaria (most notably, Walter Adey and staff at the Smithsonian Institution, Jean Jaubert and scientists at the Monaco aquarium and related facilities, and Bruce Carlson and staff at the Waikiki aquarium). The idea that growing corals is possible is still, however, a somewhat novel idea to many in the scientific community. I recently submitted a grant application to supplement funding for a project involving coral culture, and received a comment from a reviewer who remarked, "While this proposal is a novel idea, I do not think it is feasible or even possible to grow Acropora in closed system aquaria." Clearly, there is still a wide gap in the sharing of information between many scientists and aquarists.