By Leah Hays, Seatrees Program Director
Last month, I attended the International Coral Reef Symposium (ICRS) in Auckland, New Zealand, along with Seatrees’ Lead Scientist Dr. Orion McCarthy. ICRS occurs once every four years and brings together the biggest names in coral reef science, making it akin to the “Coral Reef Olympics.”
With its temperature climate, New Zealand may not be the first country that comes to mind when people picture coral reefs. Yet it felt deeply appropriate as a meeting place for the global coral reef community. The Māori people possess one of the strongest and most enduring relationships with the ocean of any Indigenous culture I’ve had the privilege to learn about firsthand.
That connection was at the core of symposium programming, beginning with opening night. A beautiful cultural performance grounded those gathered in the importance of traditional ecological knowledge and the need to bring ancient wisdom into conversation with the latest scientific technologies. Protecting coral reefs will require innovation, but it will also require us to listen to the knowledge systems that have sustained relationships between people and the ocean for generations.
I had made a deliberate effort to complete my work ahead of the conference so that I could close my laptop, drop into the experience and be genuinely present. Across five busy days, Orion and I moved between crowded conference rooms alongside our collaborators from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, absorbing as many presentations and conversations as possible.
One of my personal highlights was photographing Orion as he spoke to a packed main auditorium about his years of research on Maui, Hawaii. He also shared learnings from our collaborative project with Samsung, Seatrees, Scripps and five restoration groups. Through the initiative, participating restoration practitioners are using Samsung Galaxy devices equipped with Ocean Mode to conduct 3D photogrammetry monitoring of their coral reef restoration sites.
Our session drew attendance well beyond capacity, with some attendees left with no other option but to sit on the floor. Beyond the questions in the room, several restoration groups not yet part of the Samsung partnership came up afterward to ask what it would take to get involved, a strong indication that the work is resonating with the broader restoration community. Scripps then led a session around making photogrammetry more accessible from the data storage and processing side, a nice complement to our presentation’s focus on leveraging mobile devices for photogrammetry monitoring.
Beyond Orion’s presentation, it was encouraging to see how widely photogrammetry is now being adopted by coral practitioners around the world. Different teams may use different cameras, but many continue to encounter the same obstacles: storing immense quantities of data and gaining access to the tools and expertise needed to build and analyse complex 3D models. The technology is advancing rapidly, but ensuring it is genuinely accessible remains an important part of the challenge.
There was a spirit of generosity throughout the symposium. Despite being surrounded by some of the world’s leading coral scientists and practitioners, I found people approachable, curious and eager to share what they had learned. There was a collective understanding that the crisis facing coral reefs cannot be solved in isolation. Knowledge must move freely, and progress in one location can help unlock solutions somewhere else.
This mindset was particularly evident when three Seatrees restoration practitioners met in person for the first time: Victor Bonito from Reef Explorer in Fiji, Vincent Chalias from Ocean Gardener in Bali and Marylaura Sandoval from Raising Coral in Costa Rica. Bringing them together for a dinner with our Scripps collaborators created the space to exchange experiences, discuss challenges and share hopes for the future. There is only so much connection that can be built through emails and virtual meetings. Sitting around the same table allows people to put faces to familiar names, deepen relationships and learn directly from one another’s experience. The ease of the conversation was a testament to the strength of a partnership developed over several years.
In addition to facilitating an in-person gathering with our restoration partners, I was proud to watch them present their own research findings from their work on the ground. Marylaura from Raising Coral shared how lessons learned from the 2023 bleaching event shaped new mitigation approaches that the team is testing as the current Super El Niño causes water temperatures to surge. Victor from Reef Explorer presented on his restoration work and long-term monitoring of reef recovery within some of Fiji's marine protected areas. At the close of the conference, Victor was also presented with a Coral Reef Conservation Award and as an ICRS Fellow, a fitting nod to his years of pioneering restoration work in Fiji.
The symposium was busy—truly jam-packed—but it was also a gift. The food was wonderful, the coffee was better than America’s (although still not quite as good as Australia’s) and the opportunity to hear the accents, concerns, ideas and hopes of people representing more than 93 countries is something I will carry with me.
I am deeply grateful to have represented Seatrees as Program Director and to continue working alongside this global community as we search for stronger, more collaborative solutions for the future of the world’s coral reefs.
