Growing the capacity for affordable, large-scale coral conservation and restoration in developing countries: an update on initiatives led by the G20 Coral Research and Development Accelerator Platform (CORDAP)

The Coral Research and Development Accelerator Platform (CORDAP) seeks to fund innovative, transformative ideas and technologies that could allow us to conserve and/or restore coral reefs and other coral-based habitats affordably and at-scale. Although science is at the heart of this novel initiative, it will also be critical to simultaneously work towards growing the capacity to undertake effect coral research, conservation, and, when necessary, restoration in those areas where coral reefs in particular are located; the majority of the planet’s coral reefs are located in the territorial waters of low- to middle-income countries, many of which lack the personnel and infrastructure needed to successfully stage coral reef interventions. In an effort to develop capacity for successful coral research in developing nations, CORDAP has been 1) requiring that all proposals submitted to our “Coral Accelerator Program” (1.5-million USD awards for projects up to three years) include at least one developing country partner (and preferably being led by a developing country researcher and based at their major area of work), 2) staging workshops whereby developing country coral visionaries discuss their needs with capacity development experts to draft actionable plans to overcome barriers, 3) raising the visibility of both senior coral “champions” and more junior “rising stars” and providing them with both funding opportunities for their research and conservation/restoration projects and a research support network (including mentorships by more established members in the field) that they can depend upon to realize their coral projects, and 4) initiating a coral conservation and restoration academy (“Coral School”) that will provide training in not only basic coral biology, reef ecology, and the latest methods needed to conserve and restore reefs, but also the skills needed to serve as local and regional trainers of the aforementioned material (i.e., “train the trainers”). Through these, and other, capacity development initiatives, we seek to grow a large network of coral scientists, conservationists, and restoration practitioners through which we will implement the in-water activities flowing from the groundbreaking science and technologies developed through our CAP program. In this way, we will have cemented both the scientific and human capacity needed to climate-proof intact reefs, or restore degraded ones, on a truly global scale in a manner in which cutting-edge approaches rapidly make their way to those on-the-ground practitioners who serve as the stewards of their imperiled reefs.