Oris interviewed Ryan Donnelly, who joined Reef Restoration Foundation as its CEO in 2020. Here he explains the foundation’s mission and why it’s so important.
Ryan, good to meet you. Tell us a bit about yourself…
Great to meet you too! My name’s Ryan Donnelly and I’m CEO of Reef Restoration Foundation. I’ve got a diverse background, but I’ve always been close to the marine sector and had jobs that combined advocacy and collaboration. While coral reefs have been the most consistent theme in my working life, when I’m on holiday, you’ll find me high in the mountains where I love to walk long distances in those remote and formidable environments.
What’s the backstory behind Reef Restoration Foundation?
In 2016, the northern third of the Great Barrier Reef was subject to an intense marine heat wave that caused the worst coral bleaching ever seen. This event effected more than 90 per cent of coral reefs between Cairns and Cape York on the northern tip of Australia. Many scientists were shocked by the extent of the effects. A local marine aquarium hobbyist had the idea to start an organisation that would replicate the work of a group in the Florida Keys that had been actively restoring coral reefs since 2007. And so Reef Restoration Foundation was born.
Where does the foundation operate today, and what projects are you currently focusing on?
The foundation is solely focused on coral nurseries on the Great Barrier Reef. We now have three sites. Fitzroy Island is a near-shore fringing reef and is our R&D site where we experiment and innovate. Hastings Reef is a mid-shelf reef that has struggled to recover after Category 5 cyclones in 2007 and 2011, then mass bleaching in 2016 and 2017. And Moore Reef is another mid-shelf reef with a high rate of visitation. It is our main production site where we have the greatest capacity on our permits. For whatever reason, Moore Reef has roared back to life since 2017, whereas Hastings Reef has not. Our sole focus is our Resilience & Recovery programme whereby we attach coral fragments directly and permanently to the fibreglass “branches” of our mobile “tree” frame, mid-water nurseries. The purpose is to create and preserve spawning stock to add billions of coral larvae to the environment year after year.
What challenges are you currently experiencing as you look to fulfil the foundation’s mission?
We continue to face many regulatory hurdles, including marine parks permitting and Workplace Health & Safety laws, which inevitably translates to higher costs. The trajectory in this regard suggests that the cost of the operation will remain challenging to sustain. The need for higher revenue is confronted by a cost-of-living crisis that is gripping many parts of the world. And the market for business sponsorships and philanthropy is increasingly contested.
Why do reefs matter?
Coral reefs are found in over 100 countries around the world. They underpin ocean biodiversity and provide important economic, social, and cultural benefits. Over 800 species of reef building corals create habitats for an estimated one third of all named marine species, excluding microbes and fungi. Scientists estimate that more than 90 per cent of coral reef species have not been named and that total reef species numbers could exceed 800,000. This level of diversity is particularly impressive given that reefs only cover about 285,000 km2, which is less than 1 per cent of the surface area of the ocean. Coral reefs are also rich with symbiotic relationships amongst species, honed by millions of years of evolution. Coral reefs benefit an estimated one billion people, either directly or indirectly, from the many ecosystem services they provide. Estimates indicate coral reefs provide up to $2.7 trillion per year in services, including providing critical natural infrastructure that protects increasingly vulnerable coastlines from storms and flooding, food security for vulnerable populations, tourism revenue and even raw materials for medicines.
What are the greatest threats to reefs?
Climate change is the greatest threat to coral reefs globally. On the Great Barrier Reef, there is substantial public investment to control infestation populations of coral predators, improve water quality, limit the impacts of coastal development, and ensure our fisheries are well managed. However, these measures merely serve to mitigate against the global impacts of the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that are causing the planet to warm. Since the Cambrian Explosion more than half a billion years ago that saw a dramatic rise in species diversity and ecology, there have been five mass extinction events, each driven by natural events that caused the climate to change. These events took tens to hundreds-of-thousands of years to play out and were irreversible. The current rate of warming is driven by the actions of a single species and is hundreds of times faster than occurred during those extinction events. The difference is that the current trajectory is reversible. Even with rapid reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, it’s expected that biodiversity will decline in every ecosystem over the next couple of decades as the natural adaptive capacity of every species is challenged. Coral reefs and tropical rainforests are particularly susceptible.
We hear more and more about coral bleaching – what is it, what causes it and how significant is the problem?
Coral bleaching is a natural stress response. The stress can be caused by inundation from freshwater or prolonged exposure to high levels of irradiance from the sun in very calm conditions. Over the past 40 years or so, we have seen coral bleaching occur on a much larger scale, but the driver of the stress has been prolonged exposure to elevated water temperature. The coral animal gains its colour from a symbiosis with a microalga called zooxanthellae whose photosynthesis feeds the coral. The zooxanthellae have a range of thermal tolerance, which when exceeded can compromise performance and cause the coral animal to eject it. This removes the colour and gives the coral the appearance of being bleached. The coral does not die from bleaching but can literally starve to death if conditions do not moderate within a window of about a month. These events are occurring earlier in the summer, becoming more intense with higher temperatures, lasting longer, and are growing in geographical expanse. The current coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef is the fifth mass coral bleaching event in the past eight years and the largest to date. It is part of a global coral bleaching event that has caused mass coral mortality.
How is the foundation working to mitigate for these bleaching events?
All efforts to assist coral reefs aim to buy time while the world moves to a low-carbon future. Our intervention is designed to slow the rate of biodiversity decline by slowing the overall rate of change. Our coral nurseries are designed so that they can be lowered into cooler depths in times of thermal stress. This preserves the spawning stock to help turbo charge recovery at the next annual spawning event.
How is the foundation funded?
We are funded wholly and solely through donations and sponsorships by individuals and businesses far and wide. We have no government funding.
When did you first encounter Oris and how has your partnership developed?
Oris came on board as a sponsor in 2018. The arrangement included sponsorship of one coral tree nursery. It also included provision of a number of beautiful watches, a couple of which we have sold to support our programme, and one of which I continue to wear.
What role will the Great Barrier Reef Limited Edition IV play in supporting the foundation and its mission?
It will help us financially as we must now employ a core team of field operatives with requisite skills and experience. Plus, we aim to grow the scale of our operation, which will entail purchase of materials. The arrangement includes five watches that we will use to promote the relationship and to convert to cash in support of our programme.
How can people reading this get involved and support the foundation?
In short, we need financial support to sustain our operation. Details of how people can support our mission and how that support will be used can be found on our website (rrf.org.au).
