Asa Miller, a young conservationist from New York, has helped restore threatened coral reefs in Cuba through ¡Viva el Vivero!, a campaign he created to support under-resourced reef restoration projects. He was named a 2025 winner of the Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes at 18, among 25 young leaders honoured that year across the United States and Canada. His work centres on the Laguna de Maya Marine Protected Area in Matanzas, about 60 miles east of Havana, where scientists and divers have been restoring coral since 2019. His campaign’s name, ¡Viva el Vivero!, translates as Long Live the Nursery.
Asa Miller’s grandmother’s stories of Cuban beaches inspired his coral reef restoration work
According to the Barron Prize, Asa’s love of marine biology comes from his Cuban grandmother’s stories of white sandy beaches and turquoise water. He learned to scuba dive and film underwater at an early age, then found out that Cuba’s reefs are threatened by rising ocean temperatures and coral bleaching.Determined to help, he contacted the scientists and divers working at the protected area. His campaign provides such projects with training, manpower, record-keeping, and supplies. To prepare, he spent weeks in Florida earning dive certifications in coral reef conservation and took courses in coral reef restoration at the Nature Conservancy in Virginia.
In Matanzas, Asa Miller mapped the work and helped replant coral from nine underwater nurseries
Once in Cuba, Asa conducted interviews and reviewed dive logs to document the project’s progress, and he drafted two precise maps of the work to date. He then helped the team apply the restoration methods he had learned in the United States.The team first grew new coral fragments in the site’s nine underwater, tree-type nurseries. They then harvested the healthy fragments and replanted them throughout the 1.7 square miles (about 4.4 square kilometres) of ocean in the protected area.
Asa Miller’s underwater documentary has won awards at 25 film festivals and reached 10,000 viewers
To share his team’s techniques, Asa produced, directed and edited the documentary himself. In a speech at the 2025 Bioneers Conference, quoted by the Barron Prize, Asa asked listeners to close their eyes and picture the environmental problem they care most about solving. Then he told them to open their eyes and asked, “What are you waiting for?”
