What’s the Problem?
Top: The severity and frequency of local and global scale threats are causing mass bleaching events and serious declines in coral reef ecosystems worldwide. Bottom: Healthy coral reefs, such as this reef slope in the Great Barrier Reef, maintain rich biodiveristy. Photos: top © Bruce Carlson; bottom © Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority
Coral reefs are in crisis. The largest living structures on earth, with diversity so rich, there is no other oceanic counterpart—coral reefs are facing serious threats and are rapidly disappearing. For the most part, historical and present day threats have remained the same although their intensity and extent has increased, with overfishing, coastal development, and pollution being the key habitat degraders. The last 2-3 decades have introduced global scale threats, first and foremost being climate change, causing serious declines in coral reef communities around the world.
This toolkit addresses the question asked by managers pondering what they can do at the local scale to reduce the impacts of global climate change. Solutions involve both daily management activities and planning for change. Uncertainty is what makes our current situation most challenging. However, it is possible to build flexibility and adaptability strategies to respond to unanticipated changes and events. For more information see the Managing for Resilience section of this toolkit.
Although the science is still developing and there are many questions to be answered about mass bleaching, recent findings are giving helpful information on which to base our management strategies and decisions. Many of these findings and recommendations are found in this toolkit, or through links to related resources.