World Reef Awareness Day
Intiqab Rawoof
June 2, 2025
On June 1st, the world celebrated World Reef Awareness Day 2025 under the urgent theme: “Bringing Corals Back to Life.” This day highlights the indispensable role coral reefs play in sustaining marine life and coastal communities and the existential threats they now face.
According to the Coral Reef Alliance, coral reefs, which cover less than 1% of the ocean floor, support approximately 25% of all marine species. Beyond biodiversity, they provide food, livelihoods, and coastal protection for over one billion people globally.
However as time progresses, what is notable is that these ecosystems are collapsing. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the ongoing 2023–2025 global coral bleaching event is the most extensive on record.
To further give light to the situation, the International Coral Reef Initiative indicated that bleaching-level heat stress has now impacted 84% of the world’s coral reefs, with damage recorded across 82 countries, territories, and economies. For comparison, only 21% of reefs experienced similar stress during the first global bleaching event in 1998, rising to 37% in 2010, and 68% during the prolonged third event between 2014 and 2017.
Scientists have already described the current fourth global bleaching event as “unprecedented” as early as May 2024. The widely used Bleaching Alert System had to expand its scale, adding new Levels 3 through 5 to capture the escalating risk. Previously, Level 2 indicated potential mortality for heat-sensitive corals; Level 5 now signals a risk where more than 80% of all corals on a reef could die from sustained bleaching conditions. The World Wildlife Fund article also warns that if current warming trends continue, up to 90% of coral reefs could disappear by 2050.
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