Coral reefs around the world have been suffering for decades from a variety of global and local threats. There have been four Global Bleaching Events since records began, with projections indicating that anomalously hot events will increase in frequency and magnitude over the coming years. Whilst addressing climate change is the priority, ocean temperatures will require decades to stabilise even with immediate reductions in gas emissions that drive global warming. Consequently, there has been a global recognition for the need for active reef intervention, illustrated by the current UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. This has resulted in the development of an active interventions toolbox to buy time and develop tools to contribute to global efforts supporting reef health.
Climate change driven stress events, compounded by local stressors, are becoming more severe and frequent and consequently reducing windows of opportunity for natural reef recovery. Intervening to help recovery and build resilience is now viewed as an essential management tool alongside climate change mitigation.
Intervention options are broad, yet the primary aims are to assist natural recovery and build resilience. Alongside mitigation of climate change, a toolbox approach is required to preserve coral reefs beyond the Anthropocene.
Efforts are currently underway to deploy reef adaptation and rehabilitation practices at scale to ensure reef-wide significance; however, local efforts are vital to preserve specific reef sites of the highest cultural, ecological and/or economic value. Implementing proactive interventions prior to significant degradation will likely improve outcomes of future stress events by enhancing the resilience and adaptive capacity of the system.
Our purpose is to research and develop scientific approaches to reef restoration needed to amplify the resilience of local reefs and the communities that rely on them. While our learnings have primarily occurred on the Great Barrier Reef, our knowledge is transferrable between reef locations and is well suited to a broad range of reef restoration practitioners and researchers globally. We aim to share the lessons learned, including the failures, to maximise collective learning. We ultimately see active reef interventions as a toolbox of approaches and believe local solutions through the Coral Nurture Program are complementarity to current and future innovative solutions.
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