It’s an impressive expanse of 344,000km2 (133,000 square miles). Importantly, it spans 2,300km (1,400 miles) or 14 degrees of latitude, which traverses multiple climatic zones and bioregions. This gives it some buffer against mass coral bleaching events, but that buffer is diminishing.
Our Work
What’s At Stake?
The Great Barrier Reef is a global hotspot for biodiversity.
More than 3,000 coral reefs
450 types of reef-building corals
More than 1,000 species of soft corals
More than 1,600 species of fish
More than 3,000 species of molluscs, including gastropods and cephalopods
6 of the 7 sea turtle species found globally
600 species of echinoderm, including starfish and sea urchins
14 species of sea snake
30 species of whales and dolphin
More than 200 bird species
133 species of sharks and rays
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.
Go to our Context Centre to learn more about the Great Barrier Reef and climate change and why we chose to contribute to creating a brighter future for one of the great ecosystems of the world.
Resilience & Recovery
Our signature Resilience & Recovery program is specifically designed to counter the increased frequency, severity, and geographical expanse of coral bleaching. It aims to achieve two core objectives:
- Create species rich and genetically diverse spawning stock in mobile, midwater nurseries to produce hundreds of millions of additional coral larvae every year to help build reef resilience in the good times.
- Lower the nurseries into cooler depths during periods of warm water and wild weather to preserve the additional spawning stock, and turbo charge reef recovery in the bad times.
The program follows simple steps that can be easily replicated:
- We use a broad range of coral species from pioneers to specialists. And we use 10 genotypes of each species for genetic diversity.
- The fragments fuse back together to grow as a single colony until they are ready to participate in the annual synchronous spawning.
- Successfully fertilized larvae enter their pelagic phase of distribution on the currents. And the larvae settle on a section of reef according to chemical cues evolved over millions of years.
- Our midwater nurseries can be easily lowered to cooler depths in times of thermal stress.
- Irrespective of any consequences from warm water on the reef, we preserve species rich and genetically diverse spawning stock to turbo charge recovery at the next synchronous spawn.
The more spawning corals there are, the more new corals are added to the Great Barrier Reef.
Monitoring
During the annual synchronous spawn, we partner with scientists to collect the spawn and quantify gamete production and fertilisation rates. From a sample, the total gamete and larval production can be estimated and tracked year after year.
Our monitoring sites are located at Moore Reef and Hastings Reef, where we have undertaken R&D in recent years and where our monitoring now seeks to validate our methodology and to quantify its effect over a 10-year period from 2025 to 2035.
Moore Reef is located about 50km east of Cairns in Gunggandji Sea Country. Hastings Reef is located about 55km northeast of Cairns in Yirrganaydji (Irukandji) Sea Country. Read more about the importance of these sites, including their larval connectivity, in our Context Centre.
