Study Maps 166,000 Square Kilometres of Climate-Resilient Coral Reefs, One-Third of Global Total

A study presented Tuesday at the Our Ocean Conference in Mombasa identified 166,000 square kilometres of the world's coral reefs as particularly climate-resilient. The area equals about one-third of all coral reefs globally, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society and Macquarie University in Australia. 5 degrees Celsius of warming above pre-industrial levels and 99 percent at 2 degrees.

The new models instead show many reefs persisting through major warming events. "Our models are showing a much more hopeful future for corals reefs. We predict that there are many climate resilient reefs around the world that will persist over time," Stacy Jupiter, executive director for marine conservation at WCS, told AFP.

Only 28 percent of the identified resilient reefs are currently under active protection. More than half of the resilient reefs are concentrated in Australia, the Bahamas, Cuba, Indonesia and the Philippines. The research, funded by the Bloomberg Ocean Initiative and still under peer review, used new technology to produce a map 10,000 times more detailed than earlier versions.

It identified three times more resilient coral than a 2018 study that found 50 such reefs worldwide. "These reefs could act as living seed banks for wider ecosystem recovery," said lead author Kyle Zawada of Macquarie University. In Kenya's Wasini-Mkwiro zone, local monitoring showed coral cover dropping from 44 to 27 percent after the 2024 bleaching event before recovering to 40 percent within a year.

Kisite marine park, located nearby, became the first in Kenya to receive a Gold-Level Blue Park Award from the US-based Marine Conservation Institute in 2021. "The way we see coral responding to heat events is more nuanced than we previously thought," Jupiter said.