Community clicks send Citizens of the Reef global

“We’re running at a million miles an hour!” says Kelly Powell, Head of Engagement at Citizens of the Reef. But, honestly, that feels like something of an understatement. Because it’s only a handful of years since their first reef images were captured, tagged and analysed, yet today they are scaling up to have global reach – and the sense of urgency feels tangible.

In the six months since Canon colleagues have been part of the programme, using their dedicated platform to review and categorise images of coral, Citizens of the Reef has extended their operation to both the Red Sea and an area known as the ‘Coral Triangle’. This is a huge biodiversity hotspot that spans six countries in the western Pacific and Indian oceans and is home to 76% of the world’s coral species. “We ran our first census pilot in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines,” explains Kelly. “We're just in the middle of the analysis phase now, working towards delivering hard reef data back to local decision makers.”

This has all been made possible by an extraordinary combination of dedicated people, science and technology. On the Great Barrier Reef, a local Australian Reef Co-operative of Yirrganydji and Gunggandji people (First Nations Sea Rangers), as well as the marine biologists and dive operators, conduct the in-water phase, allowing daily access to the waters and capturing the images. These are people for whom a thriving Great Barrier Reef represents home, life and livelihoods.

From here, Citizens of the Reef oversee the tech and analysis phase, collecting the data into one place and giving it a shape that can be used by everyone who shares their desire to protect the reefs. These passionate volunteers from around include our Canon colleagues, whose thousands of clicks are putting the Great Reef Census platform through its paces.

So, naturally, the next step is to bring together everything they have learned, designed and worked so hard for… and take it global. “We have the Great Reef Census and the Reef Cooperative that's been tested for six years in Australia,” Kelly explains. “So, now it’s time to scale that internationally. Because there are so many small reef conservation organisations all over the world, our goal is to bring them all together, to lean on each other’s strengths and create a bigger impact.

And while this sounds like an intimidatingly huge undertaking for such a relatively young initiative (especially when you know that the central team at Citizens of the Reef numbers a mere eleven people), their six-years of work in Australia has been a proven success. The data captured by volunteers using the Great Reef Census, for example, has been found to be of such high quality that it – together with their low-cost AI-driven operating model – has made the world sit up and take notice.

“Historically, citizen science was never considered to be reliable,” explains Kelly. “So, it took our team years to get any credibility, especially on the Great Barrier Reef, but eventually people started using our data, then the government too. Finally, papers were released showing the accuracy of our data compared to that of an expert scientist and suddenly everything shifted.”

Their goal is to have a community of a million Citizens of the Reef, each with different roles and responsibilities, with the census sitting right at the core – creating incredible data that helps guide the actions of reef managers and scientists. “Right now, there are people all over the world engaged in the census – in over 1,250 locations – places that you wouldn’t even believe would care about tropical reefs!” This global community, even in the least likely locations, is probably the biggest indicator of how much the plight of coral reefs has entered public consciousness.

“What took us ten months to achieve last year took less than three months this year,” she adds. “In fact, Canon’s top three volunteer image analysts are among the best internationally – Kerry in London is number two in the world, Bruno in France is number seven and Paolo in Lisbon is number fifteen! Their numbers and accuracy put them at the level of expert citizen scientists. This is why our partnerships with big corporations like Canon are so critical to turning this data around as quickly as possible.”

And when scaling up globally, this army of international citizen scientists will be key to providing new, accurate and frequent data that feeds into their growing network of international restoration and protection programmes. And this looks like it’s about to become even easier. “We’ve just received funding to turn the Great Reef Census into an app!” says Kelly, excitedly. “We’re hoping to gamify the concept so that it can reach even more people, which will be so cool.”

Reefs are under growing pressure from warming seas, bleaching and a strong El Niño in the tropical Pacific that’s expected to last into autumn 2027, so it’s clear that now is very much the perfect time to expand into a more global role. With pilots in place in Hawaii, the Red Sea and the Coral Triangle (“with future plans for the Caribbean”), plus an ever-increasing number of citizen scientists using the Great Reef Census platform all over the world - it feels inevitable that Citizens of the Reef will be a household name before long. But Kelly and the team have their eyes firmly on the people and the plan. “Once we've got the infrastructure in place, the next steps will be to look at how we work closely with communities, organisations and scientists to make it super successful.” Because every citizen has a role to play, whether they’re by the sea or by the water cooler.

We’re supporting efforts to save the unseen world of coral. Follow the progress of our work here.