Reef Resilience Symposium brings world-leading together to protect coral reefs

More than 300 local and international reef experts have gathered in Cairns to address the challenges threatening reef survival around the world as a mass bleaching event takes its toll on the Great Barrier Reef.

More than 300 local and international delegates have gathered in Cairns to address the challenges threatening reef survival around the world as a mass bleaching event takes a toll on the Great Barrier Reef.

The Reef Resilience Symposium 2024 will see global reef experts share innovative new solutions to protect and restore the Great Barrier Reef and coral reefs around the world through presentations, workshops, and panel discussions.

The event will unite reef stewards, managers, researchers, engineers, traditional owners, and

tourism industry leaders to share knowledge and identify priority actions to boost the resilience of coral reefs.

“This conference is really important because it brings together all the different researchers who hold all the different pieces to the puzzle which we can put together to help map the way forward,” Reef and Rainforest Research Centre managing director Sheriden Morris said.

More than 10, triple-0 coral seeding devices are being delivered to the reef this spawning season. This year's trial is thought to be the largest coral restoration research effort in the world. Photo: Mare Roman Australian Institute of Marine Science

Key talking points will be advances in reef restoration science, innovation in the control of crown-of-thorns starfish — a destructive invasive species, First Nations conservation practices, and how tourism and local stewards can take action.

The event will also see more than 450 delegates tuning in from across the globe online able to participate in sessions virtually.

Dr David Wachenfeld is the research program director of the Reef Ecology and Monitoring Program at the Australian Institute of Marine Science.

He said this conference was particularly important.

A school of Ribboned sweetlips, Plectorhinchus polytaenia. Photo: Supplied

“As we see coral bleaching and other impacts of climate change growing both here at home and internationally around the globe we know two things are essential, the strongest possible action to reduce greenhouse emissions, but equally the science to underpin better protection of our reefs and to underpin the research and development to build the next generation of tools to protect our reefs,” he said.

Delegates address the media at the Reef Resilience Symposium 2024.

The symposium comes as the reef experiences its fifth mass bleaching event in only eight years.

“This is one of the most extensive and severe bleaching events to hit our Great Barrier Reef,”

Australian Marine Conservation Society campaign manager Dr Lissa Schindler said.

“For the first time, extreme bleaching – where more than 90% of a reef’s coral cover is bleached – has been observed in all three regions of the Great Barrier Reef.”

Originally published as Reef Resilience Symposium brings world-leading together to protect coral reefs