Want to become a Citizen of the Reef? You're just a click away

“It’s a time of doing,” says Andy Ridley, founding CEO of Citizens of the Reef. And if there’s anyone who knows about taking positive action against climate change, it’s him. Best known for being the co-creator and founding CEO of Earth Hour, he’s a leader in the environmental movement and believes that no matter who you are and where you are, there’s a role for you in fighting climate change.

Citizens of the Reef began, as so many climate-related organisations do, in response to a catastrophic event. Ten years ago, an estimated 30% to 50% of the world’s largest coral reef was killed through extreme climate change-driven marine heatwaves and a simultaneous El Niño. “A story went around the world that the Great Barrier Reef had died,” Andy recalls. “It hadn’t, but the mortality was really high. I was in the Netherlands and returned to Australia to work with some friends who had come up with an idea for a response”.

He’d barely been there three weeks when another bleaching occurred. “It was the first time anyone had seen sequential bleaching. I remember going out onto the reef and seeing soft corals just peeling off. The smell of death was devastating”. Immediately, there was a rush to understand what could be done to protect it in the long term and, crucially, how the funds could be raised.

Andy, however, didn’t see it that way. He viewed the reefs as just one part of a global ‘ocean economy’, so to lay the ground work for a stronger future meant casting a far wider net. “Coral reefs are less than 1% of the total area of oceans, but around 25% of all ocean species will spend time on them,” he explains. “They're the canary in the coal mine – one of the first ecosystems to be affected by climate change. Not only that, but they’re very, very visible.”

This means that everyone has a stake in their safety and there was no time to waste. As an organisation, they needed a low-cost way to begin monitoring and analysing what was happening at the Great Barrier Reef, which could also be quickly rolled out across any number of reefs globally. So, who better to turn to than the people already there? They rallied marine park managers, diving tourism operators, scientists, local fishers, boat owners and more, creating an enthusiastic and supportive community.

Armed with any cameras they could lay their hands on, the task for these new ‘Citizens of the Reef’ was simple: using a set of coordinates, they were to take underwater photos. Or, as Andy explains, “put snorkelers in the water and photograph all four sides of the average reef. Two divers in the water can take a photo every five fin kicks until they have forty shots. This is the baseline data that tells us how much hard coral is there”.

Back on dry land, and with data gathering underway, the team began to look at how to evaluate a mass of ongoing data submissions. They reached out to technology companies and hit the jackpot with Dell and Intel, which provided the infrastructure to host the first AI platform of its kind. This would be the first step in analysing the images, before becoming the digital heart of a global community of climate activists. These are people who might be nowhere near a coral reef, but want to use their spare time at school, in the office, at a coffee shop, on the bus, even on the couch, to review images of coral and categorise them into three different types: branching coral, plate coral and boulder coral.

“We realised that scanning images with AI got us to about 70% accuracy,” says Andy. “But it struggles to recognise shapes that vary. The human eye, on the other hand, is extremely good at detecting that a coral might be a slightly different shape. So, combining the two is giving us incredibly accurate results”. Globally, thousands of volunteers, including hundreds of colleagues across Canon EMEA, are building a dynamic, real-time map of reef health and helping to identify the powerful ‘Mother Reefs’. “These are the ones that survive disasters and play a critical part in the existence of the reefs around them,” Andy says. “When they spawn, currents carry its babies down the line to naturally reboot all the damaged reefs around it. So, if you're going to look after anything, you look after the Mother Reef.”

The results guide the actions of marine authorities, who use them to direct new restoration initiatives (similar to our work with Coral Spawning International and Nature Seychelles), track the recovery of coral after bleaching events and even detect threats (such as Crown-of-Thorns Starfish, which feed on coral and decimate reefs). “It’s complex, but what we’ve been learning on the Great Barrier Reef is how to use this data and understand how to have the biggest impact – Better management? Better restoration? Better stewardship? – and then train people to implement that in the water. We built the model here and now we’re taking it all over the world.”

He’s not kidding. Citizens of the Reef has just started operating in the Coral Triangle, an area “six or seven times bigger than the Great Barrier Reef, with more coral diversity, but a lot less resources” and the Red Sea, which is currently experiencing heavy bleaching. “We’re working with local partners, using each other's resources, but also sharing lessons,” Andy explains. “It’s a very 21st century conservation model that brings resources and expertise to communities all over the world. Then their job is to try and bring those reefs back and to share what they learn – good or bad – so we can improve. We're trying to build a virtuous circle that connects people all over the world to the communities which look after the reefs.”

Join Canon colleagues in turning our screen time into reef saving time with The Great Reef Census.