Plenary 6

The Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program (RRAP) is the world’s largest effort to help a natural ecosystem survive climate change. The Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program (RRAP) began in 2020 following a feasibility study emphasizing the urgency of climate mitigation AND the need for new protection, assisted adaption, and restoration interventions to sustain critical reef functions and values. It was clear then that time is of the essence – research takes time and the longer we wait, the more expensive and difficult it will be to successfully intervene safely and effectively at any scale. A research and development (R&D) program was designed and over the last four years hundreds of people from over 20 organisations have worked tirelessly to commence addressing key program objectives. In this presentation we reflect on learnings, key achievements and challenges. We argue that the strength of the Program lies in its mission driven approach with cross disciplinary thinking and collaboration at its core. Rapid progress is enabling selected methods to move to @scale pilot deployments in 2025, and we outline a vision for the future of the Program. Further R&D is still urgently needed, and we present some ideas to increase international collaboration on what is one of the global challenges of our lifetime.