Coral reefs are highly valuable ecosystems, both for marine life and for humanity. But coral reefs are being damaged by human activity, including global-warming induced bleaching mortality, which is projected to do severe damage to all the world’s reefs in coming decades. According to Douglas Fenner, humanity must take the actions to solve this problem, for our own sake as well as the reef’s and future generations.

Fenner has studied coral reefs around the world for about thirty-five years. After working in the coral reef monitoring program in American Samoa, now he works for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of Protected Resources in a program to teach people around the Pacific how to identify their corals and assist them in coral reef conservation.