Saving Australia's Great Barrier Reef

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At the Australian Institute of Marine Science in Queensland, research scientist Neal Cantin and a handful of colleagues are pushing living corals to the limit.

"These corals are going through a summer heat stress," said Cantin.

Stress for coral is a killer, and one of the biggest causes of stress for the Great Barrier Reef is the impact from climate change.

Corals inside of the Australian Institute of Marine Science /CGTN Photo

"We are seeing climate change degrading the reef faster than ever before," he said.

Warming ocean waters have led to more frequent and more widespread coral bleaching events – the last two occurred in 2016 and 2017.

Bleaching robs coral of the ability to protect itself.

Coral bleaching /Biopixel Photo

"We believe that those two events killed about half of the corals that we had left on the reef," said Australian Institute of Marine Science senior research scientist Line Bay.

Which brings us back to why Cantin is stressing the corals in several of the massive tanks inside one of the institute's labs.

"We're testing whether we can enhance the tolerance of offspring by exposing baby corals and the parents to future climate stress," said Cantin.

That idea of better arming corals to cope with a changing environment is the goal behind a first of its kind, multi-million dollar government funded reef adaptation and restoration program.

Great Barrier Reef /CGTN Photo

"The issue with the Great Barrier Reef is its size. It is an enormous ecosystem. It is the size of Italy and so the approaches that we are exploring at the moment really are aimed at being able to address problems on a large spatial scale," said Bay.

The world's largest living organism not only helps to sustain so much life, it also generates nearly 6 billion Australian dollars for the country's economy.

Sun shield for the reef/ AIMS Photo

Another technology being tested at the Australian Institute of Marine Science involves a kind of reef sunscreen to help reduce the harmful effects from sunlight.

"They are seeing too much light and they are seeing too much heat. The amount of oxidized stress within the tissues, just like when you get a cold or the flu, the corals are going through a really severe fever," said Cantin.

The techniques being developed here are still years away from being applied outside of the lab, but scientists say the early results are promising.

"Our hope is that the tools that we are developing for the Great Barrier Reef will be applicable for other reefs around the world and will help other countries maintain their coral reefs for future generations," said Bay.