While there is little MPA managers can do to control large-scale stresses at their sources, at least in meaningful timeframes, they can take four direct actions to help reefs survive catastrophic bleaching events:

1. Protect multiple samples of a full range of reef types, representing the likely complement of biodiversity, to spread among them the risk of any one being completely lost as a consequence of such a bleaching event.

2. Identify and fully protect coral communities that are at low risk of succumbing to any such event to enable them to seed susceptible areas and so aid in their recovery.

3. Improve reef management to maintain them as healthy as possible and so better able to survive or recover rapidly from a bleaching event. There is no substitute for effective reef management and high water quality.

4. Manage susceptible sites to facilitate recovery. Methods could include removing crown-of-thorns starfishes and other coral predators, restricting or reducing fishing of herbivores and preventing destructive fishing practices, controlling tourism impacts, improving water quality. A temporary strategy could include closure of reef fisheries on and around bleaching reefs.

Over the long term, managers should work toward nesting MPAs into broader management frameworks, such as vast multiple-use reserves, integrated coastal management regimes, or both, to enable effective control of threats originating upstream and maintain high water quality.