Meet the changemakers: the Great Barrier Reef Foundation

The changemaker series highlights the organizations, supported by BHP Foundation, that work on building solutions to complex social and environmental challenges. This time, we highlight the Great Barrier Reef Foundation’s impact and its Resilient Reefs Initiative.

By partnering with front-line reef communities across the Pacific and beyond to respond to climate change and local threats, this organization has built a collaborative network to raise funds, invest in innovative ideas and design real-world, scalable conservation programs that are delivering breakthroughs in marine and terrestrial restoration.  

Why Great Barrier Reef Foundation’s work is needed 

Coral reefs contribute an estimated $10 trillion in ecosystem services, are crucial to local communities and have cultural and spiritual significance for Traditional Owners across the globe that date back over 60,000 years. They are also one of the most vulnerable ecosystems on the planet.  

Coral reefs give life to a quarter of all marine animals, providing safe havens and breeding grounds. They support a billion people around the world, providing food, jobs and protection from storms. They are also one of the most vulnerable ecosystems on the planet. 

In 1998, the first mass coral bleaching event devastated the Great Barrier Reef, killing one in 12 of the world’s corals. To date, climate change has wiped out half the world’s coral reefs. As reducing greenhouse gas emissions is no longer enough to protect coral reefs, accelerated global efforts are needed to protect ocean habitats, restore coral reefs and help them adapt to the impacts of climate change that are already locked in. 

The solution 

The challenges facing reef ecosystems and communities require a different approach to business-as-usual planning. In line with it, the Great Barrier Reef Foundation established the Resilient Reefs Initiative.  

By taking the world’s pioneering reef restoration science and partnering with local governments and communities, the Great Barrier Reef Foundation’s Resilient Reefs Initiative works with global reef managers and front-line communities to co-design tailor-made solutions that improve climate resilience.  

The solutions are then implemented in partnership with local organizations, with the support of a global network of resilience experts. The program’s framework is based on the understanding that resilience can only be built if all systems are strengthened.  

The results so far 

Resilient Reefs is the first global program to deliver integrated reef and community resilience planning, at scale. So far, the initiative has: 

• Collaborated with four UNESCO reef sites:

1. Rock Island Southern Lagoon, Palau

2. Lagoons of New Caledonia France;

3. Belize Barrier Reef Reserve System, Belize, and

4. Ningaloo Coast, Australia 

• Launched four holistic reef resilience strategies  

• Partnered with ten First Nations groups 

• Created four Chief Resilience Officer roles in reef management authorities 

• Co-designed and actioned 30+ projects across pilot sites 

• Organized five global convenings to advance knowledge exchange 

• Trained 750+ reef managers in resilience-based management 

• Engaged 3000+ reef beneficiaries in the development of resilience strategies.  

The future 

Pacific Island nations have called for support from the global community to help implement the 2030 Pacific Coral Reef Action Plan, which outlines a more coordinated approach to reef resilience-building. 

The Great Barrier Reef Foundation has responded to this call with the second phase of its Resilient Reefs Initiative. This program will accelerate climate adaptation and restoration across Pacific reefs by sharing the latest scientific methods and connecting reef custodians with technical experts and funders from around the world.  

BHP Foundation continues to support the Resilient Reefs Initiative through this new phase of advancing a coordinated approach to reef resilience-building. 

“The Great Barrier Reef Foundation has brought a model to life, of how to consider the impacts of a changing climate, and establish a rigorous set of priority actions that will support corals, and the communities that depend on them to not just survive, but thrive into the future. It takes a partner with creative innovation and tenacious focus on detail to be successful, and that’s what the Great Barrier Reef Foundation has done.”-Melinda Macleod, BHP Foundation's Environmental Resilience Program Director. 

Initiated by the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, Resilient Reefs is a collaboration with The Nature Conservancy’s Reef Resilience Network, Columbia University’s Center for Resilient Cities and Landscapes, Resilient Cities Catalyst, UNESCO and AECOM. The program is enabled by the BHP Foundation’s Environmental Resilience Program. Learn more.