Reef Resilience

The Reef Resilience Curriculum has been designed to provide easy access to the latest science and strategies for managing coral reefs in a changing climate. The two, self-paced courses incorporate new climate and coral reef science, case studies, and management strategies that have been compiled in the online Reef Resilience toolkit. You may choose to complete individual lessons within each course. However, to receive a certificate of completion for Course 1 or Course 2, you must complete all lessons within each course and the assessment with a minimum score of 75%.

Acknowledgements: This online course was made possible with the generous support of the MacArthur Foundation and the NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program.


Get started by clicking the title of the course below.

You must create an account and login to ConservationTraining.org before accessing these courses.

Need help? Contact ctptraining@tnc.org

Please remember to have pop-ups enabled within your browser for ConservationTraining.org as many lessons open in pop-up windows.

Remote Sensing and Mapping for Coral Reef Conservation Mentored Online Course
Self enrollment
Remote sensing can be a powerful tool to map shallow marine habitats. Coral reefs in particular are good candidates, with their complex structures visible from space. However, remote sensing is not one-size-fits-all and different approaches need to be tailored to different mapping goals. This course is designed to help marine managers, conservation practitioners, scientists, decision makers, and GIS professionals explore how remote sensing and mapping technologies can inform their conservation work and understand which tools are best suited to their needs. It features self-paced lessons, webinars, online discussion on the Reef Resilience Network Forum, and direct access to leading coral reef mapping experts.
Introduction to Coral Reef Resilience
Self enrollment

This course is designed to provide a basic understanding of coral reef resilience. It includes three lessons that address the value of coral reefs, local and global stressors causing reef decline, ecological and social resilience and how managers are working to build resilience in coral reefs ecosystems.  These lessons incorporate new science, lessons learned, case studies, and practices from the online Reef Resilience toolkit www.reefresilience.org.

Duration: 1 hour

Advanced Studies in Coral Reef Resilience
Self enrollment

This course is designed to provide coral reef managers and practitioners in-depth guidance on managing for resilience. This course provides a comprehensive discussion of local and global stressors affecting coral reefs, guidance for identifying coral reef resilience, design principles for resilient MPA networks, methods for implementing resilience assessments, and introduces important communication tools for managers.

Duration: 9 hours

Coral Reef Restoration
Self enrollment

This course is designed to provide coral reef managers and practitioners with best practice guidance for common coral reef restoration techniques. This course includes six lessons that discuss strategic planning and decision-making for coral restoration, enhancing coral populations through gardening and larval propagation, restoring reef structure for coastal protection services, rapid restoration response after acute disturbances, and monitoring for restoration success. Lessons incorporate new science, case studies, and management practices described in the Reef Resilience Toolkit.

Remote Sensing and Mapping for Coral Reef Conservation
Self enrollment
This course is designed to provide marine managers, conservation practitioners, scientists, decision makers, and GIS professionals with the necessary background to decide if remote sensing products can help in their conservation work, and which products are best suited to their needs. It highlights the Allen Coral Atlas, an exciting new online platform with high-resolution imagery and global benthic and geomorphic maps of the world’s coral reef habitats. The course also delves into fine-scale mapping of live coral cover to address conservation challenges in the Caribbean.