Wildlife

Coral

We have a chance to save coral reefs

Coral reefs are home to over a quarter of all life in the ocean, and are a source of food, livelihoods, coastal protection, and cultural heritage for more than 500 million people.

As climate change causes our oceans to rapidly warm, destructive and excessive fishing and widespread water pollution threaten to degrade our most important marine ecosystems. If we don’t take action, scientists estimate that 90% of coral reefs may be lost by 2050, with dire consequences for the communities that they protect and provide for.

There are still healthy and functioning coral reefs left, and they need our help, now, to remain a vital source of food and biodiversity for people and the planet. Through strategic on-the-ground coral reef conservation informed by cutting-edge science and coupled with climate change interventions and national policy reform, we can safeguard the planet’s remaining coral reefs.

• Read about our WCS-led effort to monitor the 2016 bleaching event in 12 countries.
• We track coral bleaching worldwide, like here in the Solomon Islands in 2021.
• Learn more about our rapid assessment field method to monitor coral bleaching.

Water Pollution

Water pollution poses a significant threat to some of the Earth's most biodiversity-rich and fragile ecosystems—mangroves, seagrass beds, and coral reefs. These coastal ecosystems not only support a rich array of marine life but also play a vital role in safeguarding our climate resilience and the well-being of coastal communities. WCS is leading work all over the world to address the threat of water pollution, for communities and for our oceans.

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Bloomberg Ocean Initiative

Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Bloomberg Ocean Initiative brings together world-class partners to ensure ocean ecosystems survive and thrive despite the growing threat of climate change. No one group or one country can solve the threats facing our oceans alone—WCS is proud to be one of the partners protecting critical ocean resources for the health and livelihood of over 3 billion people and countless marine species around the world. The Bloomberg Ocean Initiative has supported the protection of nearly 7 million square miles of ocean across the world. Read more about our work here.

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Convention of Biological Diversity and Coral Reefs

With the UN Convention on Biological Diversity's existing global targets for biodiversity expiring in 2020, world leaders are planning to adopt a new global biodiversity framework, with new goals, targets and indicators, at the 15th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD CoP15) in Kunming, China in 2021. As CBD Parties negotiate a new ‘post-2020 global biodiversity framework,’ WCS is producing cutting-edge, policy-relevant science and practical recommendations around the critical need to include goals and targets focused on ecosystems and their integrity—especially to protect coral reefs—and supporting global efforts to protect or conserve at least 30% of land and sea areas by 2030.

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MERMAID

MERMAID is the world’s first open-source coral reef data platform, designed in a partnership between WCS, WWF, and Sparkgeo to revolutionize coral reef data collection. Launched in 2020, MERMAID’s dashboard provides real-time data on coral reef health to help scientists and governments mobilize to protect reefs. The platform is a vital tool to help us track the health of reefs over time and assess the effectiveness of conservation work. To date, over 570 scientists across 10 countries have used MERMAID to input data from over 1,200 coral reefs.

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