Reef Extinct Species Project
The ones we are losing.
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Species
Beneath warming seas, the reefs that built the tropics are turning white. Over 80% of the world's coral has now passed the heat threshold beyond which recovery becomes unlikely. This is the decade in which we still have a choice.
Why you should care →Reefs cover less than 1% of the ocean floor yet support a quarter of all marine life on Earth.
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Why you should care
Coral reefs are the foundation of ocean ecosystems, global food security, and coastal protection for hundreds of millions of people. When they go, entire worlds collapse with them.
Food Security
Reef ecosystems are nurseries for more than 25% of all marine fish species. Coastal and island communities across the Indo-Pacific, Caribbean, and Africa depend directly on reef fisheries as their primary protein source. As reefs collapse, fish populations crash, and food insecurity surges in regions that can least afford it.
Coastal Protection
Acting as natural seawalls, healthy reefs protect coastlines from storm surge, erosion, and flooding. Without them, hundreds of millions of people in low-lying coastal areas face catastrophic exposure to sea level rise and extreme weather. The infrastructure cost of replacing this protection with artificial structures would run into the trillions.
Medicine and Science
Compounds derived from coral reef organisms have led to treatments for cancer, HIV, cardiovascular disease, and bacterial infections. Scientists estimate we have catalogued less than 10% of reef biodiversity. Every species lost before we can study it takes unknown pharmaceutical potential with it, permanently closing doors to cures we have not yet discovered.
The science of collapse
Bleaching is not just cosmetic. It is a physiological breakdown that begins a slow, cascading death, collapsing entire ecosystems that took thousands of years to build.
What bleaching actually is
Coral gets up to 90% of its energy from symbiotic algae called zooxanthellae living in its tissue. When ocean temperatures rise even 1 to 2 degrees Celsius above seasonal maximums for more than a few weeks, coral becomes stressed and expels this algae. Without it, the coral turns ghost-white and loses its primary energy source. It is still alive, but barely, and in a race against time.
The speed of death
If water temperatures remain elevated, bleached coral dies and is quickly colonized by algae, shifting the reef from a complex three-dimensional structure to a flat, algae-smothered rubble field. The 2016–2017 bleaching event killed 50% of the Great Barrier Reef's shallow-water coral. Reefs that survive can take a decade or more to recover — but with bleaching events now arriving faster than recovery can occur, that window is closing.
The climate connection
In 1980, a mass bleaching event was unheard of. By 2025, we had experienced five global-scale mass bleaching events — the fifth being the largest and most severe ever recorded. At current emissions trajectories, scientists project that nearly all of the world's coral reefs will experience annual bleaching-level thermal stress by 2050. There will be no recovery windows left.