2022 Year in Review

Dear Friend of Reef Check,

Season’s greetings to you and your loved ones! 2022 was a great year for Reef Check and we owe that to you— our global community of volunteers, donors, and partners. I could not be prouder of what we have achieved together this year. Reef Check has grown in every aspect: monitoring coral reefs around the world and kelp forests along the West Coast, restoration and education all have increased and hit new heights.

I hope you will take a moment to read through some of the highlights of 2022 linked below. Enjoy and celebrate these achievements and please know that none of this would have been possible without you. 

As we look forward to next year, we ask you to consider a donation to Reef Check if you are in a position to do so. Your generous contributions are what enable us to meet the increasing demand for our work and we are truly grateful for each and every donation we receive. We have several different ways you can make a financial contribution to Reef Check including gifts of stock, IRA rollover contributions, and matching gifts. 

I wish you a happy holiday season and best wishes for a healthy and peaceful new year ahead!


New Kelp Restoration Site in Big Sur

Reef Check is happy to announce the expansion of restoration into the Big Sur coastline of California. Since 2015, Reef Check has recorded a decline in giant kelp densities and an increase in purple urchin densities. Community members contacted Reef Check with interest in taking early action on protecting and restoring these vital kelp forests. As a result, Reef Check has begun a new restoration project at Big Sur Reef and will use this opportunity to use learnings from other sites to improve knowledge in restoration practice. In October, Reef Check partnered with commercial urchin divers to reduce urchin loads at the site. In 12 days, divers removed 6,000 lbs of urchins, reducing urchin densities in the barren to less than a quarter of their densities before the intervention.
Photo credit: @marco_mazza

Banner Year for Kelp Forest Monitoring

This year, Reef Check’s kelp forest monitoring program went through its largest expansion since its inception in 2006. We expanded our monitoring network to almost 160 sites and completed over 180 surveys spanning a geographic range of almost 25 degrees of latitude from Baja to Washington!


Video Spotlight: Reef Check Big Sur Part 1 Kelp Forests and Reef Check: An Introduction

Reef Check surveys the Big Sur coast of California and begins kelp restoration at Big Sur Reef. Watch the Reef Check team survey this amazing coastline, learn about why it is threatened and what Reef Check is doing to protect it.
Video shot and edited by Marco Mazza


St Kitts & Nevis Launches Summer Reef Check Program

In August, 10 students came to Nevis in the Caribbean to be certified as Reef Check EcoDivers. The class was hosted by C.A.R.E. SKN, (Coral reef Assistance, Restoration & Education in St. Kitts & Nevis), a newly registered NGO that started operations with a coral nursery pilot project this June. The EcoDiver certification is a very important tool to bring awareness to the community and build up a local team of “Reef Warriors” from the citizen scientists helping with data collection.


Reef Check Malaysia’s Eventful 2022

It has been a most eventful year for Reef Check Malaysia, and the past three months have been no exception. Highlights include a return to an in-person Annual Event, the Mantanani Plastic Recycling Centre becoming fully solar-powered, and the signing of an MOU with the Department of Fisheries Malaysia that is essential for allowing Reef Check Malaysia to continue its work to support the conservation of marine ecosystems in Malaysia.


Reef Check Indonesia Partners with Fauna Conservation NFT

We’re excited to learn about a project Reef Check Indonesia is undertaking with Fauna Conservation NFT, a start-up social enterprise that is using NFTs (or non-fungible tokens) to raise funding for conservation, through the efforts of Reef Check Indonesia. Buyers can purchase an NFT, in this case a beautiful, realistic, 3D model of their favorite marine species, and in the process support the conservation of these creatures they love so much.


Reef Check in the News

Marine Heatwaves That Are More Common and Intense Put Coral Reef Ecosystems at Risk – Nature World News

Northern Red Sea reefs resist bleaching in warming seas – Phys.org

Hope for kelp restoration in California, as underwater forest returns to Monterey Bay – San Francisco Chronicle

La naissance des coraux, un spectacle aussi rare que fascinant – TF1 INFO (in French)

For more, visit www.reefcheck.org/press/