France, Dec. 14 -- The schooner departs from Lorient in Brittany on Sunday on an 18-month mission dubbed Tara Coral.
The expedition will take it to the tropical waters of the Coral Triangle - a region encompassing 5.7 million square kilometres of ocean between Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Solomon Islands and Timor-Leste.
Nicknamed "the Amazon of the seas", the zone contains some 600 different species of coral and is a hotspot of marine biodiversity.
Coral reefs provide precious habitats for underwater life, supporting an estimated one million other species. Yet as oceans warm,marine scientists have reported coral bleaching and death on a scale never seen before.
World's coral reefs crossing survival limit, glo...