Rebuilding Reefs and Restoring a Relationship at Diamonds Resorts

In the heart of the Maldives’ South Ari Atoll, Diamonds Thudufushi resort has become the centre of very ambitious marine conservation efforts and the country’s largest single installation of MARRS reef stars – the Big Build Maldives.

In October 2024, the island transformed into a hands-on conservation hub. Over 1,000 reef stars were installed, holding more than 15,000 coral fragments. During this week-long event, marine biologists, engineers, resort staff, tourists and local volunteers worked together to attach coral fragments onshore before carefully deploying the reef stars onto the degraded reef areas.

In April 2026, the project reached a new milestone with 1500 reef stars deployed and corals surviving and growing at a remarkable rate. It is hard to imagine that the colourful reef people enjoy snorkelling over today was a pale and lifeless rubble field just 1.5 years ago.

This large-scale coral restoration initiative represents a powerful response and a beacon of hope to the growing crisis facing coral reefs worldwide. It’s a living example of how our daily actions, even if they may seem insignificant, can make a real difference.

Coral reefs are under imminent threat globally and without decisive action, most reefs will disappear in the next decades. At ananea Diamonds Athuruga, the marine team has been restoring the reef at scale, planting thousands of corals every year and working to restore what has been lost. Yet the question remains: will it be enough?

But it’s not only about replanting corals, it’s about restoring a connection between people and the reef. Swimming over a vibrant coral reef for the first time can be a life-changing experience. This is the idea behind Athuruga’s Coral Connection Project: to reconnect people with this fragile ecosystem—to show its beauty, its challenges, and to highlight the actions that can help to protect it.

The project, funded by DERTOUR Foundation, was launched in 2025 on Athuruga and is operated in collaboration with the non-profit organization ‘The Oceancy’. It adopts a threefold approach to enhance coral conservation and foster engagement among resort guests, staff and local communities. Because in the end, the solution to a global crisis will not come from just planting a thousand corals.

It will come from a thousand people making better choices every day, wherever they live in the world. At Athuruga, we are not only restoring reefs. We are restoring a relationship