WWF's Dr. Gabby Ahmadia on defending our coral reefs now

The seagrass meadow below me thins out, giving way to scattered bommies—rounded, free-standing mini coral ecosystems. I swim past two ghost pipe fish that resemble blades of seagrass drifting in the water, their almost imperceptible mouths open to suck in minuscule crustaceans. A blue-ringed octopus peeks out from the rubble. Docile by nature and only the size of a golf ball, its bite would nevertheless kill me within minutes.

I reach the crest of the reef, festooned with corals, fish, and other critters of every size and shape. Beyond it, a steep drop-off affords me a view of the deep blue sea.

I’ve spent so much time in coral reefs that they feel like a second home. I have worked for more than a decade within the Coral Triangle, a 2.2 million square-mile marine area that contains more than 75% of the world’s coral species and more than 2,000 species of fish. In that time, I have designed and implemented programs to monitor the social and ecological impacts of marine protected areas across Indonesia. I have helped governments and others integrate fisheries and climate change into their decisions about how to use marine resources. And—perhaps my favorite—I train, and learn from, the local scientists who know the reef best. Most recently, as part of a small team at WWF, I have been working with the Wildlife Conservation Society to launch Mermaid, an online global coral reef monitoring database.

My professional interest in coral reefs and climate change dates to 2003, when I was an exchange student in Townsville, Australia. If you’re going to travel to discover your true calling, you could do worse than the Great Barrier Reef. But the reef is in serious trouble. Last year, more than 90% of the Northern Great Barrier Reef experienced coral bleaching, and more than 20% of the coral died as a result.