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.