Abstract Summary
Coral restoration is gaining increasing attention as a reef management strategy to address dramatic declines in coral cover worldwide. However, there is often a mismatch between the objectives of coral restoration programs and measures used to assess their effectiveness. Here, we used ten indicators to characterize and compare the potential of coral restoration efforts to improve reef resilience at both ecological and socio-cultural and economic scales. Surveys were conducted at four well-established coral restoration programs in Thailand, the Maldives, Florida Keys, and US Virgin Islands. Hard coral cover and structural complexity were systematically increased in restored compared to non-restored (degraded sites). Other ecological indicators varied inconsistently among locations, highlighting differences in methodologies among restoration programs (generic diversity metric) or in the overall health state of local reefs (density of coral juveniles, coral health, fish biomass and diversity). Interviews with local stakeholders at all locations revealed that perceptions of coral restoration effectiveness encompass far more than ecological considerations suggesting that coral restoration can be used as a powerful conservation education tool to provide hope, enhance agency, promote stewardship and strengthen coral reef conservation strategies. Respondents revealed some key points likely to improve the outcomes of coral restoration efforts such as the need to better embrace socio-cultural dimensions in goal setting, evaluate ecological outcomes more broadly, secure long-term funding and improve management and logistics of day to day practices. We suggest that long-term objectives for coral restoration and measures of their effectiveness be better integrated into the design of restoration programs in order to maximise the resilience potential of restored reefs. Authors: Margaux Hein1,2, Naomi Gardiner1, Nadine Marshall3, Roger Beeden4, Alastair Birtles1, Bette Willis1,2 1 College of Science and Engineering, James Cook University, Townsville QLD 4811 Australia 2 ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University, Townsville QLD 4814 Australia 3 CSIRO Land and Water, ATSIP Building #145 based at James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland, 4811 Australia 4 Great Barrier Reef Marine Authority, Townsville QLD 4810 Australia
