Recent research breakthroughs have given us renewed hope for its survival

With yet another coral bleaching event underway on the Great Barrier Reef, we’re reminded of the tragic consequences of climate change.

Even if we manage to stop the planet warming beyond 1.5℃ this century, Scientists predictUp to 90% of tropical coral reefs could be severely damaged.

But we believe there’s a chance the Great Barrier Reef can still survive. What’s needed is ongoing, active management through scientific interventions, alongside rapid, enormous cuts to global greenhouse gas emissions.

2020 was the year that the federal government made the following announcements Reef Restoration and Adaptation ProgramIt is a program that aims to adapt coral reefs to the effects from warming oceans. It included Research and developmentFunding could be used to fund 35 cutting-edge technologies on a large scale, such as cloud brightening or seeding reefs with heat tolerant corals.

Now, two years into the effort, we’re seeing a number of breakthroughs that bring us renewed hope for the reef’s future.

Bleaching on the reef

Aerial surveys of the entire Reef are currently being done to assess the severity and extent of current bleaching. These should be completed before March ends.

Meanwhile, United Nations’ reef monitoring delegates are visiting the Great Barrier Reef this week to determine whether its World Heritage status should be downgraded.

Early indications indicate that bleaching may be most severe in areas where there is the greatest amount of accumulated heat stress. This is especially true in the Townsville region. Some areas have seen water temperatures exceedingly high. 3℃ higherIt is more than normal.

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Researchers working in the Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program are examining a range of interventions that can be used to restore coral reefs. Unlike current reef restoration efforts, which are done by hand on a few square metres of reef, these interventions are designed to be applied at tremendous scales – across thousands of square kilometres.

To make this a reality, it will take major scientific, technological and managerial breakthroughs. We’re pleased to report that we’re already seeing the first successes, with others becoming more likely as research and development continues.

Early success stories

One of the most important interventions is to place millions of heat-tolerant corals on selected reefs.

The research team has worked together for two years. Natural adaptation was accelerated of several coral species to warmer temperatures, allowing them to survive up to an additional four weeks of 1℃ excess heat stress. We believe a total of eight weeks of 1℃ excess heat stress can be achieved.

If we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions that are driving climate change, this level of heat tolerance can make a significant difference in the survival of reefs.

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We’ve also developed novel seeding devicesThese allow for mass delivery of juvenile corals to reefs in an efficient manner that increases their survival rate, opening the door for larger field trials.

Seeding heat-tolerant corals onto the reef will require significant improvements in coral aquaculture – the process of raising healthy coral in an aquarium before transporting them to the Great Barrier Reef. While current methods are limited to producing and deploying a few thousand corals per year, new advanced methods are designed to produce tens of millions per year – faster and cheaper than ever before.

Another breakthrough is the continuous development of new models, and the data needed to calibrate them.

These are set to vastly improve our ability to predict where interventions are best deployed, and how well they’ll function. Early modelling results show that even small-scale interventions could make a significant difference in the survival rate of individual reefs over many decades.

4 conditions that will bring you lasting benefits

These early breakthroughs must meet four conditions in order to bring lasting benefits at such huge scales.

1. Interventions will need to be easily scaleable and affordable. These technologies, which are currently being tested in labs or on small patches of reef, will need to be automated, mass produced, increased in size, and delivered in ways previously unimaginable. This will require significant investment.

2. Interventions must be safe for regulators as well as the public

3. The effort must involve a wide range of people, particularly Traditional Owners of reef-country. This includes consultation, in design and decision-making.

4. most importantly, global emissions must be brought rapidly under control, ideally to keep warming to under 1.5℃ this century.

The program will conduct more reef trials over the coming months. Alongside recent advances by other programs, such as approaches to control coral-eating crown of thorns starfish, there’s now real promise that a combined intervention at scale can be successful.

The reef can be saved

Imagine a world in which coral reefs have disappeared. The few remaining coral reefs are now a shadow of their former selves: they are grey, broken, covered with weeds, and lacking colourful fish.

Millions of people who’ve depended on reefs must turn to other livelihoods, which may contribute to Climate-related Migration. Imagine, too, how we’d feel knowing it could have been prevented.

We are hopeful for an alternative vision for the future of the world’s reefs. It’s one in which the amazing beauty and diversity, and the huge global economic benefits, are intact and thriving well into the next century.

The choices we make now will determine the difference between these two futures. We must both reduce global warming and adapt to the impacts already in place in order to save our reefs. Both are necessary.

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