Status of Coral Reefs of the World: 2025
The GCRMN is a global network of scientists, managers and organisations that monitor the condition of coral reefs throughout the world.
From Science to Action: Securing the Future of Coral Reefs
The most comprehensive assessment to date of the status and trends of coral reefs, from 1980 to 2024, at global and regional scales.
Coral reefs are among the world’s most valuable natural assets — living infrastructure supporting food security, livelihoods, coastal protection, economies, biodiversity and cultural identity for close to one billion people. But they are changing at an unprecedented rate across many regions, and the primary driver is climate change. As ocean temperatures continue to climb and local pressures mount, the window to safeguard these ecosystems is rapidly closing — making timely, evidence-based action more critical than ever.
Maintaining the integrity and resilience of coral reef ecosystems is essential for the wellbeing of tropical coastal communities worldwide, and a critical part of the solution for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals under the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Global Biodiversity Framework.
The Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network (GCRMN) is an operational network of the International Coral Reef Initiative that aims to provide the best available scientific information on the status and trends of coral reef ecosystems for their conservation and management. The GCRMN is a global network of scientists, managers and organisations that monitor the condition of coral reefs throughout the world. The GCRMN operates through 10 regional nodes.
The Status of Coral Reefs of the World: 2025 — the GCRMN’s seventh edition and most comprehensive assessment to date — examines change in hard coral and macroalgal cover from 1980 to 2024 at global and regional scales. Across the 10 GCRMN regions, four are in long-term decline, four show no net change and two are increasing relative to the reference period. The report highlights the key drivers of change, and equips governments, reef managers and communities with the evidence base to prioritise interventions, strengthen resilience and direct resources where they can have the greatest impact.
The report describes the temporal trends of hard coral and algal cover (ideally at the resolution of macro algae, turf algae, and coralline algae) at the global level, providing an update of the “Status of Coral Reefs of the World: 2020” report.
