Shaping the future of climate adaptation
through Resilient Reefs

On 7 February 2023, leading figures from the Resilient Reefs Initiative led a symposium at the 5th International Marine Protected Area Congress (IMPAC5) on empowering reef communities to adapt to a changing climate. The event featured speakers from the Belize Barrier Reef Reserve System (Belize), Lagoons of New Caledonia (France), the Great Barrier Reef Foundation and UNESCO. Insights shared highlighted the importance of working with the local community to identify and fill existing gaps, adapting to the local management context and the importance of building a global network between sites to share learnings from common challenges.

In October 2022, the global partners of the Resilient Reefs Initiative met to collectively apply the principles of resilience-based management to real life projects being developed to bring positive change to reef and coastal communities in the four World Heritage-listed pilot sites. The face-to-face exchange was held over three days in Brisbane, Australia and brought together more than 30 partners from across the global network, including local site teams, government representatives and resilience experts.

In June 2022, the Resilient Reefs Initiative was launched in Palau with the appointment of its first Chief Resilience Officer, Ms. Andrea Ulchel, and Resilience Advisor, Mr. Ben Carroll. Work in the Rock Islands Southern Lagoon (Palau) includes the training of local rangers and communities in the latest science and skills in fisheries management, adaptation, and resilience. In their new roles, the team will be tasked with bringing local communities, businesses, NGOs, and tourism operators together to build an inclusive resilience strategy.

In the framework of the 2022 UN Ocean Conference, UNESCO hosted a side event highlighting the successes of the Resilient Reefs Initiative in hand with joint opportunities for prioritization of support to World Heritage-listed reefs as part of UNESCO’s emergency plan to give coral reefs the best chance of survival. The event featured speakers from the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, the Aldabra Atoll (Seychelles) and Great Barrier Reef (Australia) World Heritage sites, as well as the Global Fund for Coral Reefs.

Led by new Chief Resilience Officer, Amélie Séchaud, work in the Lagoons of New Caledonia (France) is building momentum as the team refines their Resilience Strategy and moves into the detailed action design and implementation phase. Amélie joined the local team in February 2022, and is supported by a highly collaborative and experienced local team at the Conservatoires d'espaces naturels (CEN) and Resilience Advisor, Myriam Marcon, who has been working with the Initiative since its inception.

In January 2022, Resilient Reefs brought together local and global experts to collaborate on new solutions to support resilient coastal development around the Belize Barrier Reef Reserve System. Through a week-long virtual workshop, stakeholders and students explored the development and tourism interests driving rapid urbanisation, impacts on sensitive habitats, water quality and environmental stressors correlated with coral diseases. They also considered the displacement of local communities due to climate change impacts and economic impacts from global events.

In late 2021, Ningaloo’s Chief Resilience Officer coordinated community volunteers and National Park staff to improve and formalise access to Bundegi Beach following concerns from the community about the level of disturbance caused by frequented and informal 4WD routes. Together, the group added bollards to existing dune tracks and established parking areas that will allow damaged mangroves and dunes in the area to recover and protect 3km of coastline for vulnerable shorebird populations.

In September 2021, the Resilient Reefs Initiative hosted a virtual Solution Exchange, bringing together it’s site partners and their local stakeholders to engage deeply with global experts on challenges relating to advancing sustainable tourism at each pilot site. The workshop highlighted the commonality of the challenges across the pilot sites and the opportunity for collective action, problem solving and messaging.

The Journée de la Tortue event on 8 July 2021 resulted in the historic signing of co-management agreements by eight tribes within the Isle of Pines region of New Caledonia. These agreements are a first for New Caledonia and will go a long way towards reconciling the importance of maintaining traditional customs with the critical need to protect and preserve the green turtle population.

Following in the footsteps of the CROs at the Ningaloo Coast (Australia) and the Lagoons of New Caledonia (France), Ms. Kalene Eck, the newly appointed CRO in Belize, will be tasked with the development of a stakeholder-led climate resilience strategy. The Strategy, once implemented, will allow both nature and people to thrive and help secure the preservation of the site’s Outstanding Universal Value.

The World Heritage-Listed Ningaloo Coast generates more than 1000 jobs for its local community and contributes over AU$100 million to the economy of Western Australia. The economic valuation is the first major milestone toward the design of a climate change adaptation strategy at World Heritage-listed coral reefs as part of the global Resilient Reefs Initiative.

Resilient Reefs introduced its bold, inclusive approach to climate adaptation at the first G20 International Working Group on Coral Reef Conservation in July 2020. Resilient Reefs is a new approach to marine conservation being piloted across five UNESCO World Heritage sites, and backed by a global private-public consortium.