Zoom meeting with Diana Kleine from CoralWatch

This week we will be holding a Zoom meeting and hearing from our guest speaker Diana Kleine from CoralWatch.

In this talk, Diana Kleine will share the journey of UQ-CoralWatch marine citizen science program of coral monitoring, education, and outreach to help protect reefs globally. Since the development of the Coral Health Chart in 2002, the program has outreach in 137 countries and data collection in 80 countries. The chart is an easy-to-use scientific tool to quantify changes in coral colour associated with coral bleaching on the reef. It is so simple; no prior training is needed, and anyone can get involved.

CoralWatch is a not-for-profit marine citizen science program by The University of Queensland aiming to increase understanding of coral reefs, bleaching and climate change. CoralWatch developed a simple tool, the Coral Health Chart that standardises changes in coral colours, and provides a simple way to check coral health and contribute to the CoralWatch database powered by the Atlas of Living Australia. All data from >2000 reefs is publicly available and can be downloaded. Apart from monitoring, CoralWatch focuses on education and raising awareness since the biggest threat to coral reefs is climate change and the greatest solution to save reefs for the future is reducing carbon emissions. This is where we can all help!

Diana is project manager for CoralWatch, organising education, monitoring and outreach events, designing materials that raise awareness about coral reefs, and encouraging people to help save reefs from home by adopting a more sustainable lifestyle. Diana’s background is in teaching, graphic art, and science communication. Diana loves the reef, has been diving for over 30 years and learned about the reef by working closely with marine scientists for the last 25 years. Diana is co-author and designer of the book “Coral Reefs and Climate Change” published by CoralWatch in 2009 (second edition 2012).

There are no duty officers for the Zoom meeting and the Club President will chair the meeting.