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Six years, 22 countries, close to 200 
scientists and one exceptional research

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vessel, the Global Reef Expedition is on 
a mission to study coral reefs around

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the world. Coral reefs are undergoing a 
worldwide crisis and we're trying to

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understand where the healthiest reefs 
remain, what sort of factors make those

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reefs healthy and reefs that have been 
degraded, how we can help them recover

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and persist into the future. To do so 
expedition scientists conduct a number

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of studies in the field. We're applying a 
standard protocol that was developed

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through a consortium of scientists and 
we think this will be incredibly

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beneficial to the world of science and 
management of resources. Because now we

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can truly scientifically compare one 
reef to another from one region to another.

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We operate under this banner of Science 
Without Borders. It's basically because

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there are no political boundaries 
between the ocean - it's all connected.

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And what you do in one location can affect 
another location. Every country we go to

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we work with the government agencies and 
whatever universities are there to

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identify local participants and we bring 
them out with us first to get them to

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places that they can't normally get 
access to, second to show them what we're

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doing. We try to provide training to them 
so that they pick up some of our methods

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and carry it on. It's a two-way street 
because the local knowledge is

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immeasurably important to our research 
and then the local scientists benefit by

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interacting with world-renowned 
scientists from very prominent

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universities and organizations. What 
every single country says is that their

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biggest limitation to really enacting 
sound conservation strategies is lack of

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scientific information. So our ultimate 
hope is that the research will influence

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action on the ground and so we're acting 
as a catalyst we're an accelerant to change.