The Great Barrier Reef Foundation (GBRF) has announced a 10-year, A$10 million ($6.6 million) investment from Qantas in support of a fund that will accelerate the restoration of Australia’s reef systems.

The Reef Restoration Fund will support scientists, “traditional owners” (of Aboriginal ancestry), and local tourism operators working to restore corals across the Great Barrier Reef and other coral reefs in Australia. Projects to be funded in the first two years include Boats4Corals, a program that trains local tourism operators, traditional owners, and researchers in the novel coral restoration technique known as Coral IVF and launch it in new reef locations; the Reef Restoration Adaptation Program, which aims to enable coral reefs to resist, adapt to, and recover from warming ocean temperatures; and Reef Seed, with the Australian Institute of Marine Science, which will deploy portable coral nurseries in shipping containers on the Great Barrier Reef.

“Coral reefs are the beating heart of our oceans,” said GBRF managing director Anna Marsden. “They’re a nursery and safe haven for a quarter of all marine life and support a billion people worldwide. But the Great Barrier Reef, and coral reefs around Australia and the world, cannot adapt fast enough to warming ocean temperatures, making them one of the most vulnerable ecosystems on the planet. We must help safeguard their future from the impacts of climate change.”

(Photo credit: Getty Images/byrneck)