We would like to give a shout out to WMAS (Washington DC Area Marine Aquarist Society) for their donation of $20,000 to the Great Barrier Reef Legacy Living Coral Biobank Project. Please keep reading below to learn more about WMAS and the Biobank Project.

Great Barrier Reef Legacy, along with key partners have established the Living Coral Biobank Project in Australia. Funded by private donations, the team has managed to scale the project quickly to try and secure the full biodiversity of stony corals on the Great Barrier Reef in light of four mass coral bleaching events in just six years. After being identified underwater by Dr. Charlie Veron, the ‘Godfather’ of corals, colonies are collected and are being kept alive in a dedicated holding facility with an 8,000 fragment capacity for their ultimate conservation and to make them available for reef research and restoration efforts.A second larger and publicly accessible facility destined for Cairns Aquarium is now underway, with help from WAMAS. The new facility will be capable of housing up to 12,000 live coral fragments. “We have been absolutely humbled by the support and generosity we are seeing from the US reef-keeping community, with everything from registering interest in looking after corals fragments within home and office tanks, to adopting individual coral fragments within our facility, and now with large donations such as that made by WAMAS,” says Dr. Dean Miller Managing Director of Great Barrier Reef Legacy and Project leader of the Living Coral Biobank Project. MORE