Editorial: Coral Reefs in the Anthropocene – Reflecting on 20 Years of Reef Conservation UK

Abstract

The term “Anthropocene” has been suggested as the current epoch (denoting the current geological age) and is viewed as the period where human-based activity is the dominant influence on climate and the environment (Lewis and Maslin, 2015). Arguably, one of the most prevalent and visible effects of this anthropogenic activity has manifested in the equatorial tropics—where coral reef ecosystems have suffered alarming declines (Pandolfi et al., 2003; Hughes et al., 2017). For example, recent increases in mass bleaching events brought about by prolonged periods of elevated sea surface temperatures highlight a worrying trend, with predictions that over half of reefs will experience annual severe bleaching before 2050 (van Hooidonk et al., 2016). For this reason, coral reefs have often been referred to as “canaries in the coal mine” for the marine biome. Yet reefs continue to be crucial sources of food, protection, livelihoods, and cultural identity for many people around the world (Teh et al., 2013; Hicks and Cinner, 2014; Lau et al., 2019). It is therefore critical that the link between healthy reefs, food security, and sustainable community livelihoods is maintained into the future. This Research Topic represents the proceedings for the European Coral Reef Symposium (ECRS), which took place 13th–15th December, 2017 in Oxford, UK. ECRS was organised by the Reef Conservation United Kingdom (RCUK) committee, in association with the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), University of Oxford, and the International Coral Reef Society (ICRS). Over 550 coral reef scientists and conservationists joined the meeting for a series of talks, posters, and workshops. In addition to the papers in this Research Topic, ECRS provided a platform for many other coral reef-related events and outputs. For example, the symposium hosted the European launch of the 2018 International Year of the Reef on the 13th December 2017, and several of the workshops produced published outputs (e.g., Turner et al., 2019). In this editorial, we provide a brief history of RCUK—charting the course from inception in 1997 through to ECRS in 2017—including our sustainable conferencing efforts and commitments to diversity and inclusion. We strongly believe that all conferences should carefully consider sustainability, diversity, and inclusion and we hope our efforts will inspire and encourage other conference organisers to do the same. We then introduce the globally relevant coral reef science and conservation that has been presented at RCUK meetings and provide an overview of the papers submitted to this Research Topic. We close by highlighting our vision for RCUK into the future—and lay out how this can be applied to the upcoming Frontiers Spotlight Conference on Coral Reefs.