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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

interacting with world-renowned
scientists from very prominent

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

biggest limitation to really enacting
sound conservation strategies is lack of

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

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