A young Champeta musician named Jalimer from a small fishing village on Colombia's Caribbean coast surprised a coral scientist one day with a song — and asked her to fact-check its environmental claims. Months later, that same song landed him a spot performing at COP16, a United Nations biodiversity conference, in 2024. It is exactly the kind of spark that a group of coral scientists now argues the world needs more of.
In a new research article published in the journal Science Advances, the scientists make a bold case: art and science should join forces to protect coral reefs. Coral reefs are among Earth's most threatened ecosystems, hit hard by climate change, coral bleaching, and mining. Yet most people rarely see or think about them. They live underwater, out of sight. The study argues that artists can shine a light on coral fragility and the resilience of nature.
"Artistic interventions can render the largely unseen underwater world into something visible and accessible," the authors write. When paired with scientific data, interactive design, and clear calls to action, they argue, coral-inspired art installations in cities worldwide can amplify understanding and rally support. Music, dance, film, and visual art can all help corals get noticed.
Jalimer's story shows how local art can reach the global stage. Monica Medina, a biology professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a co-author of the article, once spoke with the musician near one of her field sites in Colombia. She suggested that Champeta — a local genre from the Colombian Caribbean, similar to reggaeton — could change people's views about the environment if more songs carried meaningful lyrics. He came back months later with a finished song and asked her to fact-check its environmental impact claims.
Medina's team helped him make a music video. She says his fishing village community was proud of his initiative, and the song was well received locally, including by the mayor of Cartagena at the time. The Colombian ministry of environment then invited him to perform at COP16.
"The song had limited but great local impact," Medina said. "If the music movement around this topic was bigger, the education and conservation impact could be remarkable."
Still, the scientists acknowledge a gap: many reef conservation initiatives are local and disconnected from one another, which limits their reach. Leanne Hepburn, a coral biologist not involved in the paper, welcomed its message that communicating the crisis needs more than scientific papers. But she offered a note of caution: awareness does not always lead to action. The big next step, she said, is learning how art–science collaborations can turn into greater ocean literacy and participation — for whom, and under what circumstances.
Jalimer's song shows the model can work. The question now is how to grow one village's pride into something the whole world feels.