The Great Reef Census aims to establish a first-hand snapshot of the Great Barrier Reef’s status, while mobilising the global community in its ongoing protection.

To achieve this, we’re calling on every asset on the Reef – from superyachts, to tourism boats, research vessels and beyond – to assemble a survey fleet of unprecedented scale. And once the surveys are in, we’ll be asking people from across the world to “log-on” and help us with the analysis.

The collected data will be open-source and freely available to the global community, from researchers to school classrooms. It will also feed back into established marine monitoring and assessment programs such as Eye on the Reef.

The Great Reef Census is designed to provide information on which reefs have been recently damaged, versus those which have high levels of coral. This is important, as it’s the healthy or ‘recovered’ reefs that will provide new corals needed to repair damaged reefs elsewhere.

The objective of the Great Reef Census is to compile first-hand data in a way that is scientifically sound and provides essential insights for its management, such as where best to target interventions and restoration strategies.

To ensure reliable collection at such an immense scale, we will rely on a simple, photographic baseline survey developed by leading scientists at the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) and the University of Queensland (UQ).

Donate now