Reef encounters

Liz Bonnin an and Steve Backshall on the race to save the planet's precious Coral reefs

- HANNAH DAVIES, NATASHA HOLT, IAN MACEWAN

Coral reefs are among the habitats most urgently threatened by climate change, with half of them either damaged or already dead.

But pioneering scientists are offering glimmers of hope, as Liz Bonnin and Steve Backshall discover in Our Changing Planet: Restoring Our Reefs, the latest yearly update in the ambitious seven-year series.

‘Coral reefs cover just 1% of the ocean floor, and yet they’re home to a quarter of all marine life,’ explains Backshall, 50.

‘But they’re in serious trouble. We’ve lost approximately 50% of corals in my lifetime, and, without action, we could lose most of the reefs left within the next 20 to 30 years.