Bremen International Graduate School for Marine Sciences

The 12th International Coral Reef Symposium (ICRS 2012) was held in Cairns, Australia, from 9th to 13th July 2012. This conference is the world's major coral reef science meeting. It is held every 4 years and organised by the International Society of Reef Studies, the world’s largest society of reef scientists with over 800 members.

The ICRS 2012 had the aim, besides sharing the latest research, to increase global knowledge and interest in coral reefs, including their sustainable use and conservation strategies. Therefore also delegates from the coral triangle countries and south-east Asia were especially invited.

2081 delegates from 80 countries around the world attended this conference, including 531 early career researchers (see Figure1).

The conference started with a welcome from the Convenor of the Symposium, Terry Hughes, followed by Queensland governor (Penelope Wensley), Queensland Premier (Michael Trout) and the President of the International Society for Reef Studies (Bob Richmond). He presented the “Consensus Statement”. This statement is urging governments to take action for the preservation of coral reefs for the benefit of present and future generations. You can also sign up: https://secure.jcu.edu.au/app/form/coralcoe/registration.cfm

Over 2500 media stories were published during the conference around the world. I was surprised how great the effort was from the organisers to reach the broader public, including even schools and indigenous communities in Australia. Every participant had an original drawing from a child on their name badges (see Figure 2).

Especially impressive for me were the eight plenary talks, which highlighted the major research themes of the conference, as well as the challenges faced by coral reefs. The plenary speakers were Jane Lubchenco, Jamaluddin Jompa, Denis Allemand, Geoffrey Jones, Peter Kareiva, Helene Marsh, Madeleine van Oppen and Ove Hoegh-Guldberg. All talks are available online and highly recommended by me for reef enthusiasts.

Jeremy Jackson was honoured with the Darwin Award for his life-long work in science and engagement in clarifying the current situation of coral reefs to the public. The key message of the ICRS conference was to make scientists realize that communicating their findings to the world’s population is essential: Coral reef ecosystems are changing irreversibly!!! Please check out my teaser (2012-36_Hannah_Brocke) about this topic or the media portal “Sea Web” illustrating all press briefings. This outstanding conference showed many contemporary ways to mobilise and educate the broad audience. Please check out the Catlin Seaview Survey (http://www.catlinseaviewsurvey.com). It is a new project between Google and the University of Queensland that aims to give visitors a visual tour around reefs in Australia. Thereby the viewers have the ability to see the health of the reef provided by panoramic photographic and video surveys.

My oral presentation titled “Environmental drivers and effects of benthic cyanobacterial mats” was chaired by Laurie Richardson (Session: Physiology and ecology of cyanobacteria and sponges). Despite sparse contributions of abstracts about cyanobacteria, the audience showed great interest in the rather new topic of benthic cyanobacterial mats growing on coral reefs.

I was very pleased to find that well-known scientists were easily approachable and helpful (see figure 3). One highlight was my spontaneous dinner with the top scientists of my field. Thank you very much for this great conference and incentive! Special thanks also to my conference sponsors GLOMAR and DAAD, German Academic Exchange Service, as well as the FORCE (Future of Reefs in a Changing Environment) project.