Reef researchers have been working to dramatically increase the level of coral spawning off the Port Douglas coast  this week through a revolutionary new program known as “coral IVF”.

Great Barrier Reef Foundation managing director Anna Marsden said new coral normally reproduced during the spawning season at a rate of about one in a million, but the program was designed to turn that figure into one in 10,000 in key locations. 

“It’s a fantastic collaboration and it’s a great team effort,” Ms Marsden said.

“This gives us a fighting chance, that’s why this is so exciting this year.”

The annual Great Barrier Reef coral spawning event, the largest of its kind on Earth, was triggered by the Saturday, November 16, full moon.

The overnight “coral IVF” mission was to capture millions of eggs and sperm in specially designed floating larval pools off the coasts of Port Douglas and Cairns.

The spawn bundles will stay in the pools for up to a week as they develop into coral babies. 

Once ready, they will then be placed onto reefs.

Experts from the GBRF and the Australian Institute of Marine Science have been collaborating with tourism operators, traditional owners and marine industries to pull off the feat of spreading more coral throughout the region.

“They are the home of the reef, they’re on the front line, they’re out there in the water every day,” Ms Marsden said.

“We have this amazing science and technology, but someone’s got to do the work.”

She said recent events, including cyclones and mass coral bleaching, had been bringing scientists and industry representatives together like never before to help pioneer new solutions.

“We have to regenerate … coral reefs on an amazing scale, an unprecedented scale.”

AIMS principal systems engineer Dr Mark Gibbs said the operation was a “moonshot”, drawing parallels with when humans tried to send people to another planet for the first time.

“It’s such a big challenge that needs to be achieved in such a short amount of time that it really is like putting somebody on the moon,” Dr Gibbs said.

The new coral-deployment program was aiming to “deliver large numbers of corals back into the system” near Port Douglas and Cairns, which was the “epicentre for marine tourism”.

“There’s more intensity of tourism operators here,” he said.

“They understand the reef. It’s their day job to work out on the water.”

Quicksilver Group environment and compliance manager Phil Coulthard said looking after the reef was a responsibility everybody needed to start taking on.

“Tourism operators throughout the Great Barrier Reef have accessibility, we have infrastructure,”  Mr Coulthard said.

The sector had the ability to help out on a large scale as part of an “evolution of industry”, he said.

“We need to start understanding that we’re more than just tourism.

“We are there to do more than just show people the reef, we’re there to educate.

“We have the perfect platform to be able to do that,”  Mr Coulthard said.

One of Port Douglas’s favourites Jessica Whitworth, 40, lost her more than four year battle with cancer on Wednesday, November 20, passing away surrounded by her loved ones at the Cairns Hospital.

Ahead of a celebration of Jess’s life to be held at Rex Smeal Park on Sunday, November 24 from 5pm, close friends and family have paid tribute to Jess, a highly respected and well-loved person in the Port Douglas community. FULL STORY