Accelerating Coral Reef Resilience Action

The safeguarding of coral reefs is essential to conserve the ocean and its functions. Yet, coral reefs are in peril. The world has lost over 50% of its reefs since 1970 and mass bleaching continues to increase in frequency with the fourth mass global bleaching announced in 2024. The 2025-2030 period holds a critical moment to scale best efforts to protect ‘coral refugia’, including by addressing local drivers of ecosystem degradation, affecting the potential for reefs to recover and survive bleaching events.

As the leading global coral finance instrument, the Global Fund for Coral Reefs aims to increase the protection and resilience of at least 3 million hectares of coral reefs by 2030 – representing 25% of the Coral Reef Breakthrough target and approximately 12% of reefs remaining on Earth. To reach its 2030 targets, the GFCR Coalition requires additional grant and investment capital to support portfolio growth and ensure maximum impact potential.

During the 16th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP16) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in October of 2024, the GFCR launched a Call for Capitalisation with an ambition to secure capitalisation commitments at the third United Nations Ocean Conference set for June of 2025, in Nice France.