Annually, World Reef Day is celebrated on 1 June with World Oceans Day celebrated on 8 June. We’re taking this opportunity to highlight the beautiful Great Barrier Reef, the serious challenges it is currently facing and what Taronga and our incredible partners, including Citi Australia, are doing to help preserve our reefs and oceans. 

Taronga’s Reef Recovery program team are the leading organisation in Australia applying cryopreservation technologies to reef management, restoration and research, for conservation management of the Great Barrier Reef via our Reef Recovery Program.  

This Summer, the Great Barrier Reef saw the fifth mass bleaching event since 2016. The most recent event before that took place in Summer of 2021-2022. This time, bleaching has been observed across the length of the Great Barrier Reef, however, it is more prevalent in the Southern Region. This is part of a mass bleaching event that began during the Northern Hemisphere in Summer last year.  

With the forecast of elevated water temperatures and a possible El Nino weather event over this coming Summer, Taronga’s Reef Recovery Program Team set out to cryopreserve and bank as much genetic material as possible before it is too late. During the 2023 coral spawn at the Australian Institute of Marine Science, the team cryopreserved and banked 560 gamete samples from 78 colonies, representing 11 species of coral, collected from the Bindal and Manbarra Sea Countries. 

Two of the species banked, Acropora anthocersis and Montipora turtlensis, had not previously been cryopreserved, which brings the total number of coral species represented in Taronga’s CryoDiversity Bank to 32, making it the largest biorepository of living coral cells worldwide.   

It’s essential that we continue to cryopreserve and bank as much genetic material as possible while diverse coral populations still exist, to support reef rehabilitation and resilience.  

Taronga’s important work is made possible by the support of Taronga’s Principal Sponsor, Citi Australia, and is delivered as part of the Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program, funded by a partnership between the Australian Government's #reeftrust and the Great Barrier Reef Foundation to develop effective interventions to help the Reef resist, adapt to, and recover from the impacts of climate change.  

Learn more about the Reef Recovery Program below from lead Conversation Scientist, Dr Jon Daly.