NOAA’s Coral Reef Conservation Program (CRCP) rolled out its new Strategic Plan this fall. This plan incorporates lessons learned from programmatic evaluations and assessments, and its implementation is predicated on employing a resilience based management strategy. The plan takes a multi-pronged approach to reduce threats affecting coral reefs, particularly in U.S. waters, and to restore coral ecosystem function at an ecological scale. Direct and ecologically informed interventions are needed to keep coral reef ecosystems viable and functioning. The Coral Program’s new Strategic Plan formally establishes an additional pillar of work: Restore Viable Coral Populations. This pillar specifically addresses building and maintaining resistance and resilience to threats and will drive recovery of the ecosystem. This pillar will support necessary research, implement on-the-ground actions to prevent additional losses of corals and their habitat, and apply innovations in restoration and intervention techniques to create resilient, genetically diverse, and reproductively viable populations of key coral species. Active and targeted coral repopulation, using novel ecological interventions (e.g., stress hardening and assisted gene flow), will facilitate adaptation of coral reef ecosystems to evolving environmental conditions. Additionally, the Coral Program will improve the use of regulatory mandates to prevent loss of coral and coral reef habitat through supporting technical knowledge transfer to permitting agencies, encouraging consistent use of best management practices, and informing mitigation options with appropriate restoration techniques. Our strategies are to: *Improve coral recruitment habitat quality *Prevent avoidable losses of corals and their habitat *Enhance population resilience *Improve coral health and survival The Coral Program will require the assistance of numerous partners to realize the objectives of these restoration and resilience strategies. The Coral Restoration Consortium is a primary partner, because its membership spans the various disciplines and expertise required. To research and develop the various techniques, the Coral Program will engage academia, nongovernmental organizations, and private industry.Implementation of these techniques at ecologically meaningful scales will also require partnership with restoration practitioners, private foundations, and federal and local management agencies, as well as less traditional partners in engineering and technology development.

Recent efforts to combat coral reef decline have focused on increasing resilience by reducing local stressors, but these management strategies alone are insufficient. In each U.S. State, Territory and Commonwealth with coral reefs, there are corals that are already locally stress-adapted, thriving in stressful environments such as harbors, inlets, or in areas with poor water circulation. These “adapted corals” have demonstrated adaptation to attributes that have allowed them to endure harsh conditions such as higher temperatures, increased turbidity, elevated levels of toxins, and decreased salinity. These resistant and resilient corals could provide stocks of significant restoration potential for local coral reefs. The All Islands Coral Reef Committee (AIC) and the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force (USCRTF) have established a new working group dedicated to this initiative to help preserve and restore the functions of these valuable coastal ecosystems. The purpose of this working group is to support locally led teams in each U.S. coral reef jurisdiction (American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Florida, Guam, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands) that can select, cultivate, and transplant adapted corals or those raised for specific attributes. Each jurisdiction has been responsible for identifying managers and researchers for their local working group as well as guidelines for implementation. On behalf of the USCRTF Restoration Working Group, I will present the efforts to date of each jurisdiction including any research gaps, challenges or obstacles, and immediate needs.

The Reef Resilience Network connects marine resource managers with information, experts, resources, and skill-building opportunities to accelerate and leverage solutions for improved conservation and restoration of coral reefs around the world. The Network is a partnership led by The Nature Conservancy that is comprised of more than 1,350 members and supported by dozens of partners and TNC staff. It also includes over 100 global experts in the field of coral reefs, fisheries, climate change, restoration, and communication, and more who serve as trainers, advisors, and content reviewers. To achieve these goals over the last 15 years, we have focused on 1) synthesizing and sharing the latest science and management strategies through our website modules, journal article summaries, manager case studies, and newsletter; 2) connecting managers and experts to share resources and lessons learned through Network-hosted learning exchanges, trainings, and interactive webinars; and 3) providing training, seed funding, and support to help managers incorporate resilience concepts into their management strategies and regulatory policies, and encourage increased knowledge-sharing within and across regions. We have recently launched a new website module on coral restoration, focused on sharing best practices for methods including coral gardening in field-based and land-based nurseries, larval propagation, micro-fragmentation, and substrate addition and enhancement with engineered and other approaches. In this presentation, we will share information about RRN resources, the coral restoration module, and our plans for new content and tools coming down the pipeline.

It is widely recognized that active coral restoration is a necessary component of coral reef habitat management in the U.S. and broader Caribbean. Inevitably, permit(s) of some kind are required to undertake coral restoration, notably when those activities occur within marine protected areas, which are most often the focus of such efforts. While often viewed by practitioners as a bureaucratic impediment of the restoration process, permits provide a tool for coral reef managers to track activities, garner key data on efficacy of programs, and ensure that restoration activities do not interfere with other critical research or monitoring programs. Most importantly, through permitting, managers can ensure that multiple, discrete restoration programs are working towards a broad, holistic goal of habitat restoration. There are times, however, when emergency coral restoration actions, such as response to vessel groundings or coral disease outbreaks, must be implemented immediately. In those instances, having streamlined processes in place to address legal requirements (such as those of the U.S. National Environmental Policy Act and Endangered Species Act, among others) greatly facilitates critical coral restoration work. NOAA’s Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary used lessons learned during Hurricane Irma and a large-scale coral disease outbreak to refine and implement such simplified permitting processes.

Degradation of coral reefs around the world has increased in recent years; causing its loss of structure and functionality. Therefore, ecological restoration actions have begun to be implemented to recover these characteristics, as well as the environmental services that they provide. However, there is not a specific survey that evaluates the effect of restoration actions and have to use methods for monitor reef’s health. The Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) has developed International Standards for terrestrial ecosystem restoration. These standards evaluate a site before, at the time, and after the restoration actions, using six main ecosystem attributes: Absence of threats, Physical conditions, Species composition, Structural diversity, Ecosystem functionality and External exchanges; in a range of 0 to 5 to evaluate their recovery. The National Institute of Fisheries and Aquaculture in Mexico (INAPESCA) is working to adapt these concepts to restored reefs. A pilot test is presented to evaluate the efficiency of restoration actions implemented in two reef areas damaged by ship grounding, action which outplanted fragments of eight corals species, from 2012 to 2016, and was lead by the Reef Restoration Program of Mexico. Attribute changes were mainly observed in species composition, structural diversity and ecosystem functionality, due to the increase in coverage of reef building corals. A shift of dominant species occurs, as well as an increase of environmental heterogeneity and fish fauna improved in richness and density. These changes contribute to the recovery of the reef’s natural functionality towards a resilient ecosystem. This tool also provides a more complete picture of the recovery process, which guides the implementation of actions towards restoration goals.

Saving Animals From Extinction (SAFE) focuses the collective expertise within our
accredited zoos and aquariums and leverages our massive audiences to save species.
At the same time, SAFE will build capacity to increase direct conservation spending.
The program goal of the SAFE: Atlantic Acropora CAP program is to increase
abundance and enhance genetic diversity among wild populations of elkhorn coral
(Acropora palmata), staghorn coral (Acropora cervicornis), and their naturally-occurring
F1 hybrid (Acropora prolifera). The program is to ensure that these species remain
extant throughout their native range, experiencing successful reproduction and
recruitment. This will be accomplished through a combination of conservation and
restoration activities that include direct restoration and repopulation, using both
asexually and sexually-propagated corals. Additionally, we will work with land-based
nurseries and cryopreserved collections in order to preserve valuable genetic diversity
for future research, conservation and restoration activities. This program will increase
the number of AZA-accredited member institutions directly participating in and
contributing to the conservation of Atlantic Acropora corals, and increase awareness of
the global coral reef crisis and impacts to Atlantic Acropora species through our
collective education, outreach and public engagement activities. Through these
conservation and educational programs, AZA-accredited member institutions and project
partners will create a measurable positive impact on these populations and public
awareness of their status, their importance, and their place in the global coral reef crisis.

Until recently, most restoration efforts in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary focused primarily on Natural Resource Damage Assessment for coral reefs, seagrass, and mangroves following mechanical injuries caused by human activities. Debris removal, framework repair, transplantation, infilling, and nutrient enhancement are all techniques that have been employed. More recently, in addition to expanding outplanting of acroporids by partners to promote recovery of ESA-listed species, the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries (ONMS) also recently supported coral salvage and stabilization following Hurricane Irma to mitigate losses associated with this natural disturbance. In recognition of the accelerated decline of marine life throughout the Florida Keys, substantial threats posed by high levels of use, and recent waves of bleaching and lethal diseases, ONMS has made a new commitment to proactive ecosytem restoration. New technologies that expand the scale and the species involved in restoration efforts are needed to promote recovery of biogenic habitat, associated biodiversity, and critical functional roles provided by abiotic and biotic ecosystem elements. Our primary tactic will focus on reestablishing essential functional elements that stimulate subsequent natural recovery of other degraded habitats nearby or downstream. Priorities include restoration of herbivores such as Diadema to promote grazing, removal of corallivores to reduce coral losses, seeding of coral larvae, and outplanting of boulder corals and other species to restore habitat complexity and diversity. Auxiliary requirements may include controls on fish and lobster removal in order to restore the full range of symbiotic interactions that characterize healthy coral reef ecosystems, as well as control of invasive species. Effective ecosystem restoration also needs to consider the sensitivity of corals to physical damage from waves and storms, vulnerability to predation, and mortality due to competition with algae and other space competitors. By incorporating high genetic and species diversity, identification of coral holobionts that are resistant to disease, temperature stress and other climate impacts, and selection of the most appropriate reef environments and habitats, the performance and resilience of outplants can be enhanced.