Scientific Collaboration

Reflections on a Big Year

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As 2021 comes to a close, the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation is taking some time to reflect on everything we have accomplished this year.

Despite the restrictions imposed by the ongoing pandemic, we have had quite a few things to celebrate. This year we entered into a partnership with NASA to map the world’s reefs, concluded our 10-year Global Reef Expedition, and published a final report of our findings. We also presented our research at two major international conferences: the IUCN World Conservation Congress and the International Coral Reef Symposium (ICRS), released a report of our research in the Chagos Archipelago, and published several peer-reviewed scientific papers.

Our education and outreach departments also had a remarkable year. This year we launched a new mangrove conservation program with our partners in Jamaica and had students from over 60 countries submit artwork to our Science Without Borders Challenge. Last but certainly not least, we produced an excellent TV show on ocean health, “Our Living Oceans,” which is now playing on EarthxTV.

It’s been an incredible year, and we look forward to the work we will accomplish next year to help protect, preserve, and restore our living oceans.

What We Learned: Marine Protected Areas Work in Conserving Coral Reefs

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Managing marine resources is a challenge for communities around the globe. On the Global Reef Expedition, we had the opportunity to visit protected and unprotected reefs in both remote locations and those regularly used by humans. The degree of protection varied, but we found that areas with the highest protection had the healthiest reefs.

Marine protected areas (MPAs) are a tool commonly used by governments and communities to manage their marine resources. An MPA can have varying degrees of regulations, including no-take and no-entry where no fishing is allowed and entrance into the park is not permitted, to varying permitted use that regulate the fishing and use practices. Some of the countries we visited, such as Australia (Northern Great Barrier Reef), Palau, and New Caledonia have large human populations utilizing the reefs and have prioritized establishing large protected and managed areas to conserve their nearshore reef systems.

Our Living Oceans: Threats to Our Oceans, now playing on EarthxTV!

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Throughout the Global Reef Expedition, the Living Oceans Foundation observed signs of declining ocean health and its impact on coral reefs and coastal marine ecosystems. What are the biggest threats to our ocean, and what can be done to protect it?

Find out in the 4th episode of Our Living Oceans, now playing on EarthxTV!

Tune in to hear from experts from the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation and our fellow scientists and conservation leaders working around the world to protect and restore ocean health.

This episode features many scientists and partners who joined us on the Global Reef Expedition, as well as renowned marine scientists Dr. Daniel Pauly, Dr. Ben Halpern, and Dr. Nancy Knowlton. In this episode, you will also hear from celebrated deep-sea explorer, Her Deepness Dr. Sylvia Earle, about her hopes for the future of our ocean.

Watch Our Living Oceans online or on the EarthxTV app today, and discover the hidden life within our living oceans.

Findings from the Global Reef Expedition

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Coral reefs offer a variety of ecosystem services, including sustenance, economic opportunities, and protection from natural disturbances, as well as playing an essential cultural role for thousands of communities. However, globally, the extent of the world’s reefs is being degraded at an astounding rate. To better understand the coral reef crisis, we embarked on the Global Reef Expedition (GRE), the world’s largest coral reef survey and high-resolution habitat mapping initiative, to assess the status of Earth’s reefs at a critical point in time. The GRE brought together an international team of over 200 scientists, educators, photographers, and filmmakers who circumnavigated the globe surveying some of the most remote coral reefs in the world.

This month, we published a report summarizing all of our findings from the Global Reef Expedition.

Global Reef Expedition Final Report

The Global Reef Expedition Final Report summarizes the findings from our 10-year research mission to survey and map coral reefs across the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans as well as the Red Sea. The Expedition involved hundreds of research scientists …

The Global Reef Expedition at the IUCN World Conservation Congress

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The Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation’s Director of Science Management, Alex Dempsey, had the prestigious opportunity to present at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Marseille, France. Her presentation, entitled “The Global Reef Expedition (GRE): Circumnavigating the Globe to Address the Coral Reef Crisis,” focused on the plight of coral reefs and how the Global Reef Expedition assessed the state of coral reefs around the world.

Held once every four years, the IUCN World Conservation Congress brings together “several thousand leaders and decision-makers from government, civil society, indigenous peoples, business, and academia, with the goal of conserving the environment and harnessing the solutions nature offers to global challenges.” As coral reefs are rapidly declining globally due to a host of different stressors such as climate change and overfishing, they are a key example of a critical habitat in need of global awareness and protection using a multifaceted approach of conservation disciplines and stakeholder involvement. The presentation highlighted how the GRE was meticulously planned under the framework of Science Without Borders©, and the foundation’s three-pronged approach of using scientific research, education, and outreach to address the coral reef crisis. In each country the GRE visited, an international team of scientists together with local leaders, conservationists, government officials, and subject matter experts worked in tandem to assess the state of the reefs.

A New Model of Coral Reef Health

Scientists have developed a new way to model and map the health of coral reef ecosystems using data collected on the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation’s Global Reef Expedition. This innovative method, presented today at the International Coral Reef …