What will it take to bring Australia’s lost coastal ecosystems back from the brink?

Australia’s coastal and marine ecosystems have suffered death from a thousand cuts. But scientists say it’s possible to bring them back from the brink – if we act now.

Biodiversity loss and climate change are two tightly threaded crises, and the greatest humankind has faced. Coastal and marine ecosystem restoration has never been more urgent on a large scale, and our window of opportunity to regain what’s lost is vanishing.

Research led by scientists at CSIRO and James Cook University TropWATER has found that despite recent advances, coastal and marine restoration in Australia is often small-scale and experimental, and not yet expansive enough to meet biodiversity and climate change mitigation and adaptation objectives.

But the team also present a roadmap forward, showing how we can coordinate efforts to scale-up restoration and fast-track a national coastal restoration strategy.