Overview
- Researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society and Macquarie University presented an interactive global map on Tuesday, June 16 that identifies about 166,000 sq km of coral reef across 71 countries and 100 territories with potential climate resilience.
- The analysis used more than 45,000 field surveys from 1960–2025, decades of ocean and climate data, and machine‑learning mapping tools with funding from the Bloomberg Ocean Initiative, and the study is currently under peer review.
- Scientists say roughly 60 percent of the identified resilient reef area is concentrated in Australia, the Bahamas, Cuba, Indonesia and the Philippines, but only about 28 percent of these reefs lie inside existing protected or conserved areas.
- The team classifies resilience along three pathways—avoidance refugia where local cool conditions shield corals, resistance refugia where corals tolerate heat, and recovery refugia that rebound fast—and says the map can help target 30x30 protection plans and inform difficult triage choices.
- Authors and outside experts warn that a likely strong El Niño, accelerating ocean warming, pollution, overfishing and uneven monitoring still threaten reefs and that protecting identified refuges is urgent to sustain fisheries, tourism and coastal defenses for millions of people.