Introduction
The strategies and approaches described in the toolkit provide ways for managers to minimize the impacts of bleaching events and build resilience into the systems they manage. Photo © Paul Marshall/GBRMPA
The single most important strategy for the future of coral reefs is to reduce the amount of climate change that occurs. Preventing massive damage to ecosystems on a global scale cannot be done without reducing greenhouse gas emissions and taking steps to slow down global climate change.
This module of the Reef Resilience Toolkit focuses on the problem of coral bleaching and actions that managers can take to address this problem, specifically in the context of marine protected areas. Given the scope of global climate change and the recent mass bleaching events that have occurred in every ocean, many managers may assume that there is little that can be done on a local scale. However, there are strategies and approaches that managers can employ to minimize the impacts of bleaching events, as well as build resilience to a variety of other major stressors into the natural systems they manage.
While this toolkit emphasizes coral bleaching, the recommendations and tools can be applied to most threats that coral reefs face today. To achieve resilience managers need to focus on the most pervasive threats to coral reefs which include land-based sources of pollution, over-fishing, and climate change. Managers should work to support coral community health and ecosystem function, and in doing this will decrease the impacts of these killer threats.
The diverse assemblage of corals, associated habitats (e.g., seagrass beds and mangroves), fishes, macroalgae, and other invertebrates that function as an ecological unit require holistic management strategies. Broad scale management strategies that approach coral reefs holistically, improve the chances of positive outcomes and productive reefs into the future.
Video
Introducing the Coral Reef Module (3:02)
Many sections of this toolkit can be used as stand-alone resources. Comprehensive training on the resilience principles is also available in the Resilience Training section of this website, where you will find links to numerous resources developed by global experts on coral reef management. To make contributions to future versions of this toolkit, or add case studies, please contact us.
Top photo: Fairy basslets, wrasses, and other fish swarm over a shallow coral reef. Copyright © Brandon Cole