Fighting a spiky plague

A member from the environmental group Korero O Te Orau pulling crown-of-thorns starfish onto the boat after a diver collected them from a reef off Rarotonga in the Cook Islands. — AFP

DIVERS clutch wooden spears as they plunge beneath the waves, hunting hordes of hungry starfish destroying the coral reefs around the Cook Islands.

These makeshift tools are their best weapons in the war against crown-of-thorns starfish, a coral-munching species eating through tropical reefs already weakened by climate change.