“Over the course of seven months in 2012 and 2013, more than 70 scientists collaborated to study and map the coral reefs around the islands of French Polynesia in the South Pacific.”
“This was a huge undertaking. Researchers covered over 8,000 kilometers (5,000 miles), including places never studied by scientists before. They conducted nearly 4,000 coral reef and fish surveys in 264 dive sites across 29 islands, and mapped over 9,300 square kilometers (3,590 square miles) using satellite imagery. No other coral reef survey in French Polynesia has been conducted at this scale, said Renée Carlton, a marine ecologist with the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation.”
“Findings from this massive expedition, published in a new report, offer hope. At the time of the surveys, French Polynesia had one of the world’s healthiest coral covers, and some of the highest diversity and density of reef fish on the planet.”
View the whole story here: https://news.mongabay.com/2019/12/largest-coral-reef-survey-in-french-polynesia-offers-hope/