Experts discuss enhancing coral resilience

Coral reef managers and scientists from across Micronesia are gathered in Guam this week to learn about building resilience into reef management and the tools available for addressing the impacts of climate change. Corals are vulnerable to climate change impacts, such as increases in temperature and ocean acidification.

During the 1997-98 El Nino event, reefs in Palau, the Great Barrier Reef, and other locations experienced wide scale coral bleaching due to increased water temperatures. In some of these places, the reefs have started to recover, but other reefs have not. The participants in the Reef Resilience and Climate Change Workshop are meeting to discuss the factors that helped reefs recover and incorporate those into coral reef management.

Managers will learn how to use tools to predict coral bleaching events developed by NOAA's Coral Reef Watch, discuss factors that helped reefs recover during past bleaching events, learn about ecological and socioeconomic monitoring, and develop strategies for reef management that will help the region's reefs be more resilient to the impacts of climate change.

Reef managers around the world are engaged in activities to help coral reefs survive climate change. This workshop will also help integrate managers from this region into a network of global practitioners working to incorporate resilience at their sites.

The Guam Reef Resilience and Climate Change Workshop is part of a series of resilience and climate change workshops that haves been running for the past five years and is sponsored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Government of Guam, The Nature Conservancy, the University of Guam Marine Laboratory and Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority. (PR)