Coral reefs all over the world are declining. The water is warming at a rate that will likely outpace the natural adaptive capacity of many species, across all ecosystems. Biodiversity is at risk.
Urgent action is required to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. But that alone will not change the trajectory of warming for the foreseeable future.
On the Great Barrier Reef and in adjacent catchments, we need to strengthen existing management to rebuild functional integrity and the intrinsic resilience of the ecosystem. And we need to intervene wherever possible to assist adaptation.
These aren’t options. We need to do both.
Ryan Donnelly, CEO
The Great Barrier Reef has had eight mass coral bleaching events since 1998, six of which have occurred since 2016.
Sediment cores and coral cores from the Great Barrier Reef have revealed that while coral bleaching has occurred naturally for centuries, the frequency and intensity of these events has dramatically increased since the late 18th century, coinciding with expanding industrialisation and accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
As the frequency of these events increases, the period for recovery decreases. The slower growing, long-lived coral species with the specialist ecological relationships with numerous reef creatures will gradually fail to recover, leading to declining biodiversity.
Biodiversity is critical because every species has evolved to occupy a niche and to perform the functions of that niche. Some are keystone species with limited functional redundancy, which means we simply cannot afford to lose them.
A fully functional ecosystem is resilient. The Great Barrier Reef remains a resilient ecosystem but there is a trajectory of increasing frequency of episodes of warm water that challenges that resilience and the ability to fully recover and retain the biodiversity that characterises this icon of the natural world.
A Grassroots Action Group
Resilient Reefs started life as Reef Restoration Foundation in 2017 in response to the mass coral bleaching that affected the northern third of the Great Barrier Reef.
We are independent and unaligned, operated by a small team, supported by our community, and resourced through sponsorships and tax-deductible donations. Our work is supported by volunteer dive workers from our local community.
We changed our name to Resilient Reefs to better reflect what we are aiming to achieve. In warming seas, the challenge is to put coral reefs in the best position to adapt.
We assist recovery after disturbances that are occurring more frequently. And we seek to slow the decline in biological diversity that provides functionality and resilience.
Our signature Resilience & Recovery program is built around minimal intervention in the process of recovery after disturbance. It aims to hasten the process of recovery as the period in between disturbance shortens.
Resilience & Recovery is not a program of coral gardening planting corals to the reef. Our focus is firmly on sexual reproduction and working with nature.
The program uses two main principles:
- Species diversity
- Genetic diversity within species
And three main success factors:
- Corals grow about five times faster in the water column than they do on the reef
- Corals in the nurseries reach reproductive viability in about half the time
- The nurseries can be lowered to deeper, cooler water in times of thermal stress
Our program is not a competing alternative to other practitioners or approaches to adaptation on the Great Barrier Reef. We need collective action and that means working together to pool our contributions to a brighter future for the Great Barrier Reef. The only competition we are in is the race against time. And we are all in that together.