Restoring Beauty

Why Aesthetics Belong in Conservation

When we talk about ecological restoration, we usually talk about function: fish returning, corals regrowing, water clearing. But what about restoring beauty? Can we measure that? Should we?

Two coral reef studies, published a decade apart, tackled these questions from different angles. Together, they point to a quiet revolution: conservation success isn’t only about species counts and biomass. It’s also about how nature looks and feels to us.

Complex coral reef bommie (pinnacle) with a multitude of healthy coral species is clear tropical waters.

Study 1: Can Beauty Be Measured?

In 2015, Haas et al. published a study in PeerJ asking a bold question: could computers be trained to detect beauty in coral reefs?

The answer was a cautious yes. Algorithms could identify visual cues humans consistently find beautiful:

• Color richness

• Complexity of structure

• Brightness and contrast

• Texture variation

Reef beauty, the researchers argued, wasn’t purely subjective. It was partly measurable.

Why does this matter? Because beauty is an ecosystem service too. People don’t just care about biodiversity in abstract scientific terms. They care about the aesthetic experience of nature: the awe, the delight, the sense of wonder. Haas et al. showed that this, too, can be tracked.

The Catch: Shifting Baselines

But there’s a complication. Each generation calibrates their sense of “natural beauty” based on what they grow up with. This is the classic shifting baseline problem.

If a reef has already lost half its coral cover, but that’s all you’ve ever seen, you may still find it beautiful. Over time, degraded ecosystems risk being mistaken for “normal.” Our emotional compass adjusts downward, even as ecological richness declines.

Study 2: Can Beauty Be Restored?

Fast forward to 2025. A new study by Alisa et al. in Scientific Reports asked a different question: how do people perceive restored reefs compared to natural ones?

Their findings were surprising. Restored reefs, while biologically younger, were often rated just as beautiful as healthy reefs. What drove human preferences were visual markers:

• Coral cover

• Fish abundance

• Overall richness of color and form

In other words, people didn’t automatically see restored reefs as “pale imitations.” They found genuine awe in them. Restoration could rebuild not just ecological function, but also aesthetic and emotional value.

Why This Changes the Story

Put these two studies together and the implications are profound:

1. Beauty is measurable. We can track aesthetic qualities of ecosystems alongside biodiversity.

2. Beauty is restorable. People can experience restored environments as truly beautiful, not second-class.

3. Beauty matters for action. Emotional connection fuels conservation. People protect what they love, and beauty is often the bridge to love.

This reframes conservation success. It’s not only about scientific indicators. It’s also about whether ecosystems spark joy, awe, and belonging.

What's Next for Conservation?

These insights open up a new frontier: weaving aesthetics into the practice of restoration. Some possible paths forward:

• Track aesthetic recovery: Pair AI and human perception surveys to monitor beauty alongside biology in conservation projects.

• Design for experience: Intentionally include color, texture, and complexity in restoration efforts. Not just species counts.

• Elevate emotional ecosystem services: Recognize beauty, wonder, and cultural value as real, measurable, and worthy of investment.

Ocean Hoptimism's Take

Snorkelers hover over a carpet anemone and clownfish on a coral reef.

At Ocean Hoptimism, this resonates deeply. Our mission is to spotlight ocean success stories that revive a sense of agency, bridge hope to action, and remind us that emotion is the connective tissue that carries people from caring to doing. Facts matter. But what moves people is often beauty: the shimmer of a reef, the sweep of a kelp forest, the spark of joy when we find a tidepool filled with neon colored anemones.

These studies remind us that restoration can rebuild not only function but also feeling. That beauty is not trivial. It is essential. And that rebuilding beauty may be one of the most powerful ways to rebuild care, belonging, and the will to act.

Because in the end, people protect what they love. And beauty is one of the ocean’s most persuasive arguments for why it deserves our love.

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