Welcome to Good Weekend Talks, a magazine for your Ears, featuring in-depth conversations with fascinating people from sport and politics, science and culture, business and beyond. Hi, I'm Mal Fyfe from the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. I'm filling in for your normal host, Conrad Marshall, who has been away covering the Paris Olympics. Lucky guy. In this episode, we speak with Anna marsden. In 2018, Anna was running a relatively small Brisbane based charity called the Great Barrier Reef Foundation. But overnight, her life changed when she got news that former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was handing her $443 million to help the Great Barrier Reef through the worst of climate change. It was a controversial decision which some argue tainted the work of the foundation. But six years down the track, the money has been allocated, the funding has been audited. And in this interview, Anna looks back on what's been achieved. She also talks about the state of the reef as it comes out the other side of another bleaching event last summer, the fifth since 2016. I explore these topics and more in a major feature on the reef that we publish this weekend. Welcome, Anna. Thank you.

Welcome to Good Weekend Talks, a magazine for your Ears, featuring in-depth conversations with fascinating people from sport and politics, science and culture, business and beyond. Hi, I'm Mal Fyfe from the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. I'm filling in for your normal host, Conrad Marshall, who has been away covering the Paris Olympics. Lucky guy. In this episode, we speak with Anna marsden. In 2018, Anna was running a relatively small Brisbane based charity called the Great Barrier Reef Foundation. But overnight, her life changed when she got news that former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was handing her $443 million to help the Great Barrier Reef through the worst of climate change. It was a controversial decision which some argue tainted the work of the foundation. But six years down the track, the money has been allocated, the funding has been audited. And in this interview, Anna looks back on what's been achieved. She also talks about the state of the reef as it comes out the other side of another bleaching event last summer, the fifth since 2016. I explore these topics and more in a major feature on the reef that we publish this weekend. Welcome, Anna. Thank you.

Lovely to be here.

Lovely to be here.

So one of the reasons why we decided to do a piece on the Great Barrier Reef at the moment were there were many reasons. One, one was that there's been a bleaching event, the fifth bleaching event since 2016, this last summer. But another reason, Anna, was that this is the year that is the end of this period of time when you got to spend $443 Million dollars. The Great Barrier Reef Foundation was given that money by the former prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, in 2018, and it's fair to say that it was a bit controversial. How was that for you? Just going right back to the beginning, when that huge bucket of money was announced for your what was actually a fairly small charity at the time?

So one of the reasons why we decided to do a piece on the Great Barrier Reef at the moment were there were many reasons. One, one was that there's been a bleaching event, the fifth bleaching event since 2016, this last summer. But another reason, Anna, was that this is the year that is the end of this period of time when you got to spend $443 Million dollars. The Great Barrier Reef Foundation was given that money by the former prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, in 2018, and it's fair to say that it was a bit controversial. How was that for you? Just going right back to the beginning, when that huge bucket of money was announced for your what was actually a fairly small charity at the time?

Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, that's right. Sort of six years ago now, the controversial is the word. I think that if you if that has come up the most. It didn't start out as controversial. I think if you really go back to it, this investment, this heightened investment came on the back of two really horrible summers where the ocean just didn't cool down. And we lost across that 24 month periods in 16 and 17, 50% of the corals on the Great Barrier Reef. They they just perished. They starved to death. And there was so much shock and surprise amongst all the interested parties around that sit in the epicenter of the Great Barrier Reef protection effort tourism operators, marine scientists, frontline rangers, you know, conservation groups like ourselves because people had known that the Great Barrier Reef and coral reefs were susceptible and a frontline ecosystem to climate change. But everyone had expected to see this kind of loss in 20 or 30 years time. So there was a lot of despair. And up until that point, a lot of the protection efforts and investment had been very much business as usual. And so there was this crying out for we need an elevation of investment. We need something, we need more. So when we first were made aware that there was this landmark investment and this seems this seems really naive at the time to to say this, We just went fantastic. It's exactly what the reef needed. And there is no doubt we had been we had been intentionally at the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, such a, um, a quiet achiever charity. We loved our work and so and we were quite small. And so it was a total surprise to a lot of people who went, who is this group and where have you come from and how? And, and it is a lot of money. It was a lot of zeros. So what started off as wow, great news for the reef. Gosh. How do we how do we honor this investment and do what's great to gosh, we're now responding to a political crisis and this onslaught of curiosity and questioning and cynicism levelled at our organization, our people, our work, everything we've ever done. Uh, six years later, the reefs benefited. So I don't want to live through that moment again. But I'm grateful for the consequence of the bar being set so high on us and for the work that everybody has delivered.

Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, that's right. Sort of six years ago now, the controversial is the word. I think that if you if that has come up the most. It didn't start out as controversial. I think if you really go back to it, this investment, this heightened investment came on the back of two really horrible summers where the ocean just didn't cool down. And we lost across that 24 month periods in 16 and 17, 50% of the corals on the Great Barrier Reef. They they just perished. They starved to death. And there was so much shock and surprise amongst all the interested parties around that sit in the epicenter of the Great Barrier Reef protection effort tourism operators, marine scientists, frontline rangers, you know, conservation groups like ourselves because people had known that the Great Barrier Reef and coral reefs were susceptible and a frontline ecosystem to climate change. But everyone had expected to see this kind of loss in 20 or 30 years time. So there was a lot of despair. And up until that point, a lot of the protection efforts and investment had been very much business as usual. And so there was this crying out for we need an elevation of investment. We need something, we need more. So when we first were made aware that there was this landmark investment and this seems this seems really naive at the time to to say this, We just went fantastic. It's exactly what the reef needed. And there is no doubt we had been we had been intentionally at the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, such a, um, a quiet achiever charity. We loved our work and so and we were quite small. And so it was a total surprise to a lot of people who went, who is this group and where have you come from and how? And, and it is a lot of money. It was a lot of zeros. So what started off as wow, great news for the reef. Gosh. How do we how do we honor this investment and do what's great to gosh, we're now responding to a political crisis and this onslaught of curiosity and questioning and cynicism levelled at our organization, our people, our work, everything we've ever done. Uh, six years later, the reefs benefited. So I don't want to live through that moment again. But I'm grateful for the consequence of the bar being set so high on us and for the work that everybody has delivered.

One thing that I noticed when I was doing this story was how tricky it is to communicate what's going on on the reef for so many reasons. I mean, the reef has become a kind of a proxy in the climate change wars. And so when you look at the actual state of the reef, it's quite complex because some people say, you know, it's got more hard coral cover than ever before, which is, which is true in, in certainly the north and the central region. And then other people will latch on to a bleaching event like the bleaching event that we've had last summer and sort of say that everything's terrible. And what what I kind of worked out is that the truth is somewhere between those two things. And that the reef has kind of gone from is on this roller coaster at the moment. It's kind of going from kind of the lowest coral cover to the highest. And it's it's something that even the scientists are trying to sort of scrambling to understand. Would that be your view?

One thing that I noticed when I was doing this story was how tricky it is to communicate what's going on on the reef for so many reasons. I mean, the reef has become a kind of a proxy in the climate change wars. And so when you look at the actual state of the reef, it's quite complex because some people say, you know, it's got more hard coral cover than ever before, which is, which is true in, in certainly the north and the central region. And then other people will latch on to a bleaching event like the bleaching event that we've had last summer and sort of say that everything's terrible. And what what I kind of worked out is that the truth is somewhere between those two things. And that the reef has kind of gone from is on this roller coaster at the moment. It's kind of going from kind of the lowest coral cover to the highest. And it's it's something that even the scientists are trying to sort of scrambling to understand. Would that be your view?

Yeah. Look, there is there is no doubt. It's it's there's a desire to oversimplify what's going on in the Great Barrier Reef. And I think there's I think for me, what I've learned in my time here, I can't help but always draw parallels to human health. You know, if, if, if we have someone who's in our inner circle who's diagnosed with a, you know, a really a tough disease that has not a great outlook, um, that you have good days and you have bad you try treatments, you hope for cures, you don't give up. You have days where it gets on top of you. Um, but you don't simply oversimplify it with you're dying or you're living and you don't question it in the same way that we do with the reef. The reef is a living ecosystem that is so large that people do not, you know, understand that to some degree that everything you describe, that all those truths can be alive. And particularly in the last week, there has been record coral cover. There's also been the hottest day in 400 years. How can they both be true? Well, because there are different time zones. One report was done on this date and the almost report on that, and both can be true. But I do think coming back to your higher point, whether it's good or bad, we are at a point where the reefs are iconic. Status has made her a global symbol of conservation, of climate, change, of planetary challenge and people for for with the best intentions will use that symbolism to push their message. So right now I could hold you up, uh, six different headlines and all of them be true. And all of them driving a different message. There's a it's a it's an interesting place to navigate. And I remember David Wachenfeld who I know, um, you also speak to regularly, who now works at Ames and previously was the chief scientist of the Marine Park Authority. He said to me, once everybody is using the reef for their messages, but who's just listening to what the reef is saying? And I think that's a really interesting point that I often think about, well, where's the where's the truth? Simply for the reef. Coral reefs are they're they're fragile ecosystems. They are experiencing significant challenges. And because of climate change, the local pressures that they already have are being compounded. So their resilience is waning. And then they've got these significant summer events that just hit them hard and lose coral. Um, but the truth is, particularly on the Great Barrier Reef, there is still resilience and fight in this ecosystem. And this is very different. We we don't really recognize this enough globally. But you go over to America and they had a really horrific summer where the corals and the Florida, it's like they were put into an air fryer. They were just cooked in a day. None of this 30 days of starving. They were just cooked in a day. Now those corals are not coming back. There is no inherent resilience. The the the system is no longer able to restore herself. It's like after a bushfire, a forest no longer has enough seeds to even repair itself. Even if it rained. We do not have that on the Great Barrier Reef. So when we hear a good news story that there is strong coral cover, it's not. I don't take that message of, oh, great, well, sit back and relax. Job done. That is a sign of this system. It is not too late to help the system, to give Mother Nature that helping hand, and help restore pets that have been lost and enhance the resilience. Now, in 5 to 10 years time, we won't have that. There's too many knocks coming. We won't have that inherent resilience. So we're in this window of opportunity. But people do tend to want to get to the bottom line. Does that mean it's dying or it's alive or it's it's hopeless or it's hopeful? And I've learnt that in this job, I can spend my entire time trying to convince people to think like me, or I can just present our honest story, showcasing the work that's being done to protect the reef, showing the progress, celebrating the partners and hoping people follow this storyline. Because yes, it's a moment of truth for the reef, but there's also a remarkable moment of achievement and opportunity, of what's being done out there in Australia. And if we get it right, then the world benefits because we can share this technology with the world.

Yeah. Look, there is there is no doubt. It's it's there's a desire to oversimplify what's going on in the Great Barrier Reef. And I think there's I think for me, what I've learned in my time here, I can't help but always draw parallels to human health. You know, if, if, if we have someone who's in our inner circle who's diagnosed with a, you know, a really a tough disease that has not a great outlook, um, that you have good days and you have bad you try treatments, you hope for cures, you don't give up. You have days where it gets on top of you. Um, but you don't simply oversimplify it with you're dying or you're living and you don't question it in the same way that we do with the reef. The reef is a living ecosystem that is so large that people do not, you know, understand that to some degree that everything you describe, that all those truths can be alive. And particularly in the last week, there has been record coral cover. There's also been the hottest day in 400 years. How can they both be true? Well, because there are different time zones. One report was done on this date and the almost report on that, and both can be true. But I do think coming back to your higher point, whether it's good or bad, we are at a point where the reefs are iconic. Status has made her a global symbol of conservation, of climate, change, of planetary challenge and people for for with the best intentions will use that symbolism to push their message. So right now I could hold you up, uh, six different headlines and all of them be true. And all of them driving a different message. There's a it's a it's an interesting place to navigate. And I remember David Wachenfeld who I know, um, you also speak to regularly, who now works at Ames and previously was the chief scientist of the Marine Park Authority. He said to me, once everybody is using the reef for their messages, but who's just listening to what the reef is saying? And I think that's a really interesting point that I often think about, well, where's the where's the truth? Simply for the reef. Coral reefs are they're they're fragile ecosystems. They are experiencing significant challenges. And because of climate change, the local pressures that they already have are being compounded. So their resilience is waning. And then they've got these significant summer events that just hit them hard and lose coral. Um, but the truth is, particularly on the Great Barrier Reef, there is still resilience and fight in this ecosystem. And this is very different. We we don't really recognize this enough globally. But you go over to America and they had a really horrific summer where the corals and the Florida, it's like they were put into an air fryer. They were just cooked in a day. None of this 30 days of starving. They were just cooked in a day. Now those corals are not coming back. There is no inherent resilience. The the the system is no longer able to restore herself. It's like after a bushfire, a forest no longer has enough seeds to even repair itself. Even if it rained. We do not have that on the Great Barrier Reef. So when we hear a good news story that there is strong coral cover, it's not. I don't take that message of, oh, great, well, sit back and relax. Job done. That is a sign of this system. It is not too late to help the system, to give Mother Nature that helping hand, and help restore pets that have been lost and enhance the resilience. Now, in 5 to 10 years time, we won't have that. There's too many knocks coming. We won't have that inherent resilience. So we're in this window of opportunity. But people do tend to want to get to the bottom line. Does that mean it's dying or it's alive or it's it's hopeless or it's hopeful? And I've learnt that in this job, I can spend my entire time trying to convince people to think like me, or I can just present our honest story, showcasing the work that's being done to protect the reef, showing the progress, celebrating the partners and hoping people follow this storyline. Because yes, it's a moment of truth for the reef, but there's also a remarkable moment of achievement and opportunity, of what's being done out there in Australia. And if we get it right, then the world benefits because we can share this technology with the world.

We went on a trip to Hayman Island where there was a media launch of McLaren, the F1 team, talking about their role in basically automating baby corals and dispersing them onto the reef. And I noticed, Anna, that you you were constantly trying to, you know, walk that line. It's like and you talk to philanthropists all the time. It's like, how do you give people the news is kind of grim, but how do you give people hope that they want to be a part of it? Is that is that really tricky?

We went on a trip to Hayman Island where there was a media launch of McLaren, the F1 team, talking about their role in basically automating baby corals and dispersing them onto the reef. And I noticed, Anna, that you you were constantly trying to, you know, walk that line. It's like and you talk to philanthropists all the time. It's like, how do you give people the news is kind of grim, but how do you give people hope that they want to be a part of it? Is that is that really tricky?

Oh, look, it's less tricky because increasingly I'm so excited. And I'm not saying that to be naive, but I'm so excited about the solutions. I think the work that has been achieved in the last six years, it's getting very clear about the pathway to success, about precision restoration of both the marine and the coastal ecosystems, and these are pathways that we didn't know 5 or 6 years ago. But I think I think also to I'm not a person that hovers on the bad news for very long. Yeah, we know there's a problem. We could sit here and feel sorry for ourselves and give up and also turn around and blame, you know, previous generations, industries. Or we can get on with it. And I feel that sort of mucking, mucking in and getting on with it. It plays to my personality. It's very much the style and the personality of the Great Barrier Reef Foundation. So there are days where it's tough, and certainly last summer, you know, we could see the water heating up and everyone was very nervous that we would have a repeat of what happened in Florida. We're really I mean, and this is where this is where you the whole thing seems almost implausible. We were so lucky that cyclones hit, you know, but that's what happens in this world. You need another big weather event to cool down the other big weather event. Um, so I don't find it as hard. The gravity of the of the cause doesn't get on top of me as much as it did perhaps 4 or 5 years ago, because We are surrounded by really remarkable people working on the solution, and soon it will be about just scaling that work. Um, so I feel more upbeat. But we haven't got a cure. These are treatments we're talking about. These are treatments to a challenge.

Oh, look, it's less tricky because increasingly I'm so excited. And I'm not saying that to be naive, but I'm so excited about the solutions. I think the work that has been achieved in the last six years, it's getting very clear about the pathway to success, about precision restoration of both the marine and the coastal ecosystems, and these are pathways that we didn't know 5 or 6 years ago. But I think I think also to I'm not a person that hovers on the bad news for very long. Yeah, we know there's a problem. We could sit here and feel sorry for ourselves and give up and also turn around and blame, you know, previous generations, industries. Or we can get on with it. And I feel that sort of mucking, mucking in and getting on with it. It plays to my personality. It's very much the style and the personality of the Great Barrier Reef Foundation. So there are days where it's tough, and certainly last summer, you know, we could see the water heating up and everyone was very nervous that we would have a repeat of what happened in Florida. We're really I mean, and this is where this is where you the whole thing seems almost implausible. We were so lucky that cyclones hit, you know, but that's what happens in this world. You need another big weather event to cool down the other big weather event. Um, so I don't find it as hard. The gravity of the of the cause doesn't get on top of me as much as it did perhaps 4 or 5 years ago, because We are surrounded by really remarkable people working on the solution, and soon it will be about just scaling that work. Um, so I feel more upbeat. But we haven't got a cure. These are treatments we're talking about. These are treatments to a challenge.

For. Next year as part of this funded work. The reef restoration adaptation program, our app is going to roll out the world's biggest intervention, really on a reef, which is going to be thousands and thousands, probably maybe half a million in the first year of these baby corals. And some of them will be more heat tolerant. So can you explain what's going on there and how hopeful you are that that might make a difference on the reef. Absolutely.

For. Next year as part of this funded work. The reef restoration adaptation program, our app is going to roll out the world's biggest intervention, really on a reef, which is going to be thousands and thousands, probably maybe half a million in the first year of these baby corals. And some of them will be more heat tolerant. So can you explain what's going on there and how hopeful you are that that might make a difference on the reef. Absolutely.

And I think, you know, there's two things that we're up against with the Great Barrier Reef, particularly, um, and that scale and time. And we knew in the same way. And a lot of my colleagues here at the Foundation have worked at tree planting, um, organizations. And they were there when people started talking about reforestation and replanting. And it's the same sort of era that we're in that these are underwater forests that have taken knocks and we've lost coral cover. So there is a moment there where we need to work with nature to restore these corals. And so reef restoration is not new, but in its form that it was 4 or 5 years ago is painstakingly manual. So you crack off a bit of coral. A human diver cracks off a bit of coral, plants it to a tile, or hangs it off of a wire frame, hopes that helps it grow and then replant it into it, cements it to another coral reef. All of that is underwater. All of that is manual. And when you think about an ecosystem the size of the Great Barrier Reef, you know, 70 million football fields, it's trillions of dollars and we don't have the time. And, you know, imagine asking the government for that kind of money. Um, so the ambition was to make refer to to, to solve the bottlenecks for reef restoration. How do you make it faster, work larger, survive more, and really cheap. And so rather than looking at the fragments or clippings as you would if you were looking at plants, you're going to see, you're going to the coral babies. And how can you turbocharge the amount of coral babies that are naturally spawning around spawning season, but also help them be thermally tolerant? And so there are a range of different interventions and solutions that the consortia of 350 marine scientists all around Australia who are working on in different parts, coming together in this remarkable collaboration. And these sort of end up in, in these, um, beachside nurseries that can, um, take a spawning event and shoot out millions. I mean, in this first instance, about half a million, um, coral babies that will have a thermal enhancement to them. So somehow they'll be warmer than they were. Are they going to be warm enough to survive? Well, that's what we have to keep on working on. That thermal tolerance will be something that continues to be a big focus of the R&D that will continue to to feed into this program. But this is about being able to restore corals and plant corals at a meaningful scale that's affordable. And you mentioned McLaren. They their role is to help us do it faster. So we've got a production line that's working for us. How could we halve, um, the speed of getting those corals born and out into the water on these little ceramic cat cradles? So all of this is about trying to deliver an efficiency in helping the coral reefs maintain their resilience and sort of rebuild summer to summer. Um, it's it's exciting because you're right. As of next year, all of this great work that's been working in the lab and little, you know, site, um, testing around spawning seasons all gets brought together for the first prototype and pilot. And if that works, then here we have this very viable, meaningful moment that you could then take around the world where every local community could have one of these nurseries on their beach and be able to essentially look after their own backyard of corals by planting, um, tougher coral babies every spawning season.

And I think, you know, there's two things that we're up against with the Great Barrier Reef, particularly, um, and that scale and time. And we knew in the same way. And a lot of my colleagues here at the Foundation have worked at tree planting, um, organizations. And they were there when people started talking about reforestation and replanting. And it's the same sort of era that we're in that these are underwater forests that have taken knocks and we've lost coral cover. So there is a moment there where we need to work with nature to restore these corals. And so reef restoration is not new, but in its form that it was 4 or 5 years ago is painstakingly manual. So you crack off a bit of coral. A human diver cracks off a bit of coral, plants it to a tile, or hangs it off of a wire frame, hopes that helps it grow and then replant it into it, cements it to another coral reef. All of that is underwater. All of that is manual. And when you think about an ecosystem the size of the Great Barrier Reef, you know, 70 million football fields, it's trillions of dollars and we don't have the time. And, you know, imagine asking the government for that kind of money. Um, so the ambition was to make refer to to, to solve the bottlenecks for reef restoration. How do you make it faster, work larger, survive more, and really cheap. And so rather than looking at the fragments or clippings as you would if you were looking at plants, you're going to see, you're going to the coral babies. And how can you turbocharge the amount of coral babies that are naturally spawning around spawning season, but also help them be thermally tolerant? And so there are a range of different interventions and solutions that the consortia of 350 marine scientists all around Australia who are working on in different parts, coming together in this remarkable collaboration. And these sort of end up in, in these, um, beachside nurseries that can, um, take a spawning event and shoot out millions. I mean, in this first instance, about half a million, um, coral babies that will have a thermal enhancement to them. So somehow they'll be warmer than they were. Are they going to be warm enough to survive? Well, that's what we have to keep on working on. That thermal tolerance will be something that continues to be a big focus of the R&D that will continue to to feed into this program. But this is about being able to restore corals and plant corals at a meaningful scale that's affordable. And you mentioned McLaren. They their role is to help us do it faster. So we've got a production line that's working for us. How could we halve, um, the speed of getting those corals born and out into the water on these little ceramic cat cradles? So all of this is about trying to deliver an efficiency in helping the coral reefs maintain their resilience and sort of rebuild summer to summer. Um, it's it's exciting because you're right. As of next year, all of this great work that's been working in the lab and little, you know, site, um, testing around spawning seasons all gets brought together for the first prototype and pilot. And if that works, then here we have this very viable, meaningful moment that you could then take around the world where every local community could have one of these nurseries on their beach and be able to essentially look after their own backyard of corals by planting, um, tougher coral babies every spawning season.

And one thing that when I was reporting this, I did struggle a little bit was the message that if people just got the message, for example, that McLaren is saving the reef, then would that actually make them think, oh, okay, well, we don't really have to do anything about emissions reduction then. Like is there a level? And also McLaren being a Formula One team and responsible for quite a number of emissions themselves. I really struggled with that for a while. And so can you convince me why this isn't green?

And one thing that when I was reporting this, I did struggle a little bit was the message that if people just got the message, for example, that McLaren is saving the reef, then would that actually make them think, oh, okay, well, we don't really have to do anything about emissions reduction then. Like is there a level? And also McLaren being a Formula One team and responsible for quite a number of emissions themselves. I really struggled with that for a while. And so can you convince me why this isn't green?

Well, I mean, I think to your point earlier you said about communication. No, McLaren isn't going to save the reef. No, single. I'm not going to save the reef. We to to to give the Great Barrier Reef to give coral reefs on this planet a fighting chance. We need to build a heck of a team. We need a lot of skills. We need investment. We need people working together. We need people not duplicating and not competing. Um. McLaren have. There is no doubt McLaren and their engineers have a specialist skill in refining and accelerating pathways. Production lines, they can just make things run efficient and faster and seamlessly. We are working against speed, against time, and they have been able to look at our, um, pipeline and our production line and see great efficiencies. That in itself will be powerful. That won't be the end game. It's how they work then with the scientists and how we work with First Nations communities and how everybody else, if we all if we all work together, then yeah, there's a there's a chance we'll save the Great Barrier Reef. I think to the point about the industries that people come from. There is no doubt that we are a civilization in a state of transition. Transition, um, industries that were palatable and heroic ten years ago are finding themselves in different stages in history. Um, we are a partnering organization, we believe, and we've always proudly tried to find a bridge to industry. We believe that industry has a lot of brains. Trust that we need inside the tent to save the Great Barrier Reef. It is an exclusively marine science problem. It's a technology problem, an engineering problem, a project management problem, and a communications problem. If there are organizations and partners that can bring their know how to our cause, great, but also come also with a commitment to net zero. Come also with an acknowledgment that you as an organization, um, need to be on the journey to do better by this planet. And I think we've we've learned a lot about that journey. We're really comfortable with the partners that we have. McLaren is the first Formula One team to have a sustainability officer, the first Formula One team to really show leadership in that area. They understand and they recognize they're on a journey. We can help them sharpen up that journey. We can help inspire their team to commit to that more so shutting groups out who are have an intent and a desire to come on this journey, I don't think gets us there any faster. Um, so that's sort of my spirit, but will anybody single handedly better put their hand up and say, I save the reef if they can? Where have you been? You know, come do it. Be awesome. Um, but it won't be a single institution. It will be all of us doing the best we can in the lanes that we're best playing in. Um, and what I will say is, though, is, is there a role for Australia to be the leaders in this to to show great courage and share everything that we're learning? 100%. If there's a leadership role in coral reef restoration, it's one that absolutely belongs and should belong to Australia.

Well, I mean, I think to your point earlier you said about communication. No, McLaren isn't going to save the reef. No, single. I'm not going to save the reef. We to to to give the Great Barrier Reef to give coral reefs on this planet a fighting chance. We need to build a heck of a team. We need a lot of skills. We need investment. We need people working together. We need people not duplicating and not competing. Um. McLaren have. There is no doubt McLaren and their engineers have a specialist skill in refining and accelerating pathways. Production lines, they can just make things run efficient and faster and seamlessly. We are working against speed, against time, and they have been able to look at our, um, pipeline and our production line and see great efficiencies. That in itself will be powerful. That won't be the end game. It's how they work then with the scientists and how we work with First Nations communities and how everybody else, if we all if we all work together, then yeah, there's a there's a chance we'll save the Great Barrier Reef. I think to the point about the industries that people come from. There is no doubt that we are a civilization in a state of transition. Transition, um, industries that were palatable and heroic ten years ago are finding themselves in different stages in history. Um, we are a partnering organization, we believe, and we've always proudly tried to find a bridge to industry. We believe that industry has a lot of brains. Trust that we need inside the tent to save the Great Barrier Reef. It is an exclusively marine science problem. It's a technology problem, an engineering problem, a project management problem, and a communications problem. If there are organizations and partners that can bring their know how to our cause, great, but also come also with a commitment to net zero. Come also with an acknowledgment that you as an organization, um, need to be on the journey to do better by this planet. And I think we've we've learned a lot about that journey. We're really comfortable with the partners that we have. McLaren is the first Formula One team to have a sustainability officer, the first Formula One team to really show leadership in that area. They understand and they recognize they're on a journey. We can help them sharpen up that journey. We can help inspire their team to commit to that more so shutting groups out who are have an intent and a desire to come on this journey, I don't think gets us there any faster. Um, so that's sort of my spirit, but will anybody single handedly better put their hand up and say, I save the reef if they can? Where have you been? You know, come do it. Be awesome. Um, but it won't be a single institution. It will be all of us doing the best we can in the lanes that we're best playing in. Um, and what I will say is, though, is, is there a role for Australia to be the leaders in this to to show great courage and share everything that we're learning? 100%. If there's a leadership role in coral reef restoration, it's one that absolutely belongs and should belong to Australia.

But we also have, as I discovered during this piece, uh, some of the key critics in Australia, like Terry Hughes from James Cook University, who's a very well known reef scientist who basically says that all of this reef adaptation restoration work is pie in the sky. It can't be scaled. It's going to be too costly. Uh, he's a very strong critic of our app and other programs that are in that space. There's also people like Charlie Veron and others who are supportive of our apps work, but they're drawing a line now about whether you put corals out there that aren't. If you put corals out on the reef that have no extra heat tolerance, they're just going to die. And Florida is seeing that now. Their corals that they put out on the reef on the last summer bleached and died. So with you having the sort of purse strings, have you made a decision in your funding to say, no, we're not going to we're not going to do the the coral gardening and all that side of it. We're just going to concentrate on getting more heat tolerant corals.

But we also have, as I discovered during this piece, uh, some of the key critics in Australia, like Terry Hughes from James Cook University, who's a very well known reef scientist who basically says that all of this reef adaptation restoration work is pie in the sky. It can't be scaled. It's going to be too costly. Uh, he's a very strong critic of our app and other programs that are in that space. There's also people like Charlie Veron and others who are supportive of our apps work, but they're drawing a line now about whether you put corals out there that aren't. If you put corals out on the reef that have no extra heat tolerance, they're just going to die. And Florida is seeing that now. Their corals that they put out on the reef on the last summer bleached and died. So with you having the sort of purse strings, have you made a decision in your funding to say, no, we're not going to we're not going to do the the coral gardening and all that side of it. We're just going to concentrate on getting more heat tolerant corals.

I mean, we're I mean, and Charlie Varon and, um, Terry Hughes are remarkable and influential people and ones that we hold the greatest respect to. And neither of them are wrong. Um, again, things lie in the nuance. Terry's comment about reef restoration. You're right. At the at the current scale, it's being delivered. It's not going to get us there. Um, which is which is why our app is trying to solve those scaling challenges. And there is no doubt that the corals that are being planted right now, unless they are fragments taken from surviving corals. And I think that's a really interesting point. So since 2016, I think most corals on the Great Barrier Reef have made it through a coral bleaching event. So they're already a surviving coral of a heat event. So if you are using those as your broodstock for, say, a coral IVF or your broodstock for a fragment, then you are taking a nap. You are taking a naturally tougher coral and replanting it so both of them are absolutely right. There will come a point where, and we hope that we can stay in step with the warmer weather and the adaptation that these restoration programs are taking the corals on. So I agree it would be wasted energy just to plant corals for the sake of planting corals, because unless they're tougher, unless we're trying to find a way to future proof them, it's it's it's it's theater. It's window dressing. Um, the programs that we're funding have a in it. They have an adaptation piece in there. And we are very much focused on impact. We are focused on finding and delivering a better future for coral reef. So any science that helps us ensure that the survivability of these coral babies is increased. That's what's that's what we are backing right now.

I mean, we're I mean, and Charlie Varon and, um, Terry Hughes are remarkable and influential people and ones that we hold the greatest respect to. And neither of them are wrong. Um, again, things lie in the nuance. Terry's comment about reef restoration. You're right. At the at the current scale, it's being delivered. It's not going to get us there. Um, which is which is why our app is trying to solve those scaling challenges. And there is no doubt that the corals that are being planted right now, unless they are fragments taken from surviving corals. And I think that's a really interesting point. So since 2016, I think most corals on the Great Barrier Reef have made it through a coral bleaching event. So they're already a surviving coral of a heat event. So if you are using those as your broodstock for, say, a coral IVF or your broodstock for a fragment, then you are taking a nap. You are taking a naturally tougher coral and replanting it so both of them are absolutely right. There will come a point where, and we hope that we can stay in step with the warmer weather and the adaptation that these restoration programs are taking the corals on. So I agree it would be wasted energy just to plant corals for the sake of planting corals, because unless they're tougher, unless we're trying to find a way to future proof them, it's it's it's it's theater. It's window dressing. Um, the programs that we're funding have a in it. They have an adaptation piece in there. And we are very much focused on impact. We are focused on finding and delivering a better future for coral reef. So any science that helps us ensure that the survivability of these coral babies is increased. That's what's that's what we are backing right now.

The Australian Institute of Marine Science is now starting to talk about coral rescue, about actually. And there's there's the program in Cairns. I think it's the Forever Reef program. Would that be something that you would, would fund where you actually make sure that you have the I think off the top of my head, 415 species of that are on the Great Barrier Reef that you keep. You've made sure you've got them somewhere so that they don't go extinct. Is that something you would fund?

The Australian Institute of Marine Science is now starting to talk about coral rescue, about actually. And there's there's the program in Cairns. I think it's the Forever Reef program. Would that be something that you would, would fund where you actually make sure that you have the I think off the top of my head, 415 species of that are on the Great Barrier Reef that you keep. You've made sure you've got them somewhere so that they don't go extinct. Is that something you would fund?

We have been we've been funding a cryopreservation program. Gosh, as long as I've been at the foundation and I'm eight years old now, we've been funding it. The the corals are stored. It's a partnership between Taronga Zoo and the Smithsonian. And we do have corals that are there. They are. It's an insurance policy. And I believe it was last year that some of those corals or maybe it's even this cycle, but some of those corals are being thawed out to ensure that they are still viable stock for what we need to be. You don't you don't want to have to be thinking about insurance policies. But this is this is unprecedented, the era that we're in. And I'd prefer to have options, you know, along this way. So yeah, we've been funding that for quite a number of years and that but that is not to us a symbol of giving up. That's just a symbol of being smart.

We have been we've been funding a cryopreservation program. Gosh, as long as I've been at the foundation and I'm eight years old now, we've been funding it. The the corals are stored. It's a partnership between Taronga Zoo and the Smithsonian. And we do have corals that are there. They are. It's an insurance policy. And I believe it was last year that some of those corals or maybe it's even this cycle, but some of those corals are being thawed out to ensure that they are still viable stock for what we need to be. You don't you don't want to have to be thinking about insurance policies. But this is this is unprecedented, the era that we're in. And I'd prefer to have options, you know, along this way. So yeah, we've been funding that for quite a number of years and that but that is not to us a symbol of giving up. That's just a symbol of being smart.

So Anna, what next for you and your organization? So you basically go from something small to huge overnight and then back to small. Is that how it works?

So Anna, what next for you and your organization? So you basically go from something small to huge overnight and then back to small. Is that how it works?

I don't think the reef's going to let us go back to small. I look, I think for us the next era is going to be really exciting. We through the Reef Trust Partnership, we were we were guardians of some amazing programs, some amazing pilots, some great science. I think the key gift of these this years were that so many key players, a lot of them non-government, got to work together and there is an empowerment and a momentum around that reef protection effort. That's that's just inspiring. For us, we are very much sharpening our focus on scaling coral, restoration and adaptation, scaling coastal restoration. And this is about this beautiful ecosystem that sits between the terrestrial and the water. Seagrasses, mangroves, you know, wetlands, which are the homes and the food sources and the breeding grounds of all our most beloved iconic animals turtles, dugongs, all that great stuff. Um, they are also really powerful carbon sinks. So we're looking at how we can scale the restoration of that. We're also still really committed to working in, in, in step and in co-design with First Nations groups across the reef doing whatever the, you know, community partners want us to do. Um, there was a point there where we wondered what life after RTP would look like, whether it would be just going back to little old us, you know, and where we were. But at the moment, it looks like nothing is slowing down in this space. And if anything, um, I think the team are just really excited about the solutions that are in our fingertips right now and how we can share these, not just in the Great Barrier Reef, but across to our neighbours. Because I think that's another thing that's we're really excited about is how can we, um, generate the uplift in reef restoration, not just here in Australia, but also with our neighbours in the Pacific. So alas, our to do list is still long. Um, our partners still want us in this space. We want to be in this space. We've got an amazing family of supporters. And so the era and the chapter after the Reef Trust Partnership will continue to be impactful and will do what's right by the reef, which I guess has been our driver all along.

I don't think the reef's going to let us go back to small. I look, I think for us the next era is going to be really exciting. We through the Reef Trust Partnership, we were we were guardians of some amazing programs, some amazing pilots, some great science. I think the key gift of these this years were that so many key players, a lot of them non-government, got to work together and there is an empowerment and a momentum around that reef protection effort. That's that's just inspiring. For us, we are very much sharpening our focus on scaling coral, restoration and adaptation, scaling coastal restoration. And this is about this beautiful ecosystem that sits between the terrestrial and the water. Seagrasses, mangroves, you know, wetlands, which are the homes and the food sources and the breeding grounds of all our most beloved iconic animals turtles, dugongs, all that great stuff. Um, they are also really powerful carbon sinks. So we're looking at how we can scale the restoration of that. We're also still really committed to working in, in, in step and in co-design with First Nations groups across the reef doing whatever the, you know, community partners want us to do. Um, there was a point there where we wondered what life after RTP would look like, whether it would be just going back to little old us, you know, and where we were. But at the moment, it looks like nothing is slowing down in this space. And if anything, um, I think the team are just really excited about the solutions that are in our fingertips right now and how we can share these, not just in the Great Barrier Reef, but across to our neighbours. Because I think that's another thing that's we're really excited about is how can we, um, generate the uplift in reef restoration, not just here in Australia, but also with our neighbours in the Pacific. So alas, our to do list is still long. Um, our partners still want us in this space. We want to be in this space. We've got an amazing family of supporters. And so the era and the chapter after the Reef Trust Partnership will continue to be impactful and will do what's right by the reef, which I guess has been our driver all along.

And lastly, Anna, what would be your message to the average person who may not be thinking much about the reef, who may be living in Melbourne or Sydney. What's your message to them about the reef?

And lastly, Anna, what would be your message to the average person who may not be thinking much about the reef, who may be living in Melbourne or Sydney. What's your message to them about the reef?

The reef is one of the most beautiful, iconic, beguiling places on this planet and she happened to choose to be. Australia's Australians are naturally proud of the reef. I think with the messages and the stories that we've heard, sometimes Australians feel sad when they hear about the reef and not feel proud. What I would encourage anyone to do is to lean into the work that's being done to protect this wonder, because it will fill up your bucket. It will make you proud. We live in a remarkable era, one with great challenge, but also one that holds great opportunities. The reef is not giving up. Please don't give on up on all of us who are doing everything we can to protect this wonder. I still think we will be successful, but the story of how we get there. We need Australia's backing and we need everybody in the corner cheering us on. Um, so lean into it and we'd love to have you on the story.

The reef is one of the most beautiful, iconic, beguiling places on this planet and she happened to choose to be. Australia's Australians are naturally proud of the reef. I think with the messages and the stories that we've heard, sometimes Australians feel sad when they hear about the reef and not feel proud. What I would encourage anyone to do is to lean into the work that's being done to protect this wonder, because it will fill up your bucket. It will make you proud. We live in a remarkable era, one with great challenge, but also one that holds great opportunities. The reef is not giving up. Please don't give on up on all of us who are doing everything we can to protect this wonder. I still think we will be successful, but the story of how we get there. We need Australia's backing and we need everybody in the corner cheering us on. Um, so lean into it and we'd love to have you on the story.

Well, thanks, Anna, for for joining me today.

Well, thanks, Anna, for for joining me today.

Thank you so much. It's been wonderful.

Thank you so much. It's been wonderful.

Good weekend. Talks is brought to you by the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. Subscriptions power our newsrooms to support independent journalism. Search, subscribe Sydney Morning Herald or The Age? And if you enjoyed this episode, please remember to subscribe, rate and comment wherever you get your podcasts. This episode of Good Weekend Talks is produced by Kai Wong. Editing from Konrad Marshall. Tom McKendrick is head of audio and Katrina Strickland is the editor of Good Weekend.

Good weekend. Talks is brought to you by the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. Subscriptions power our newsrooms to support independent journalism. Search, subscribe Sydney Morning Herald or The Age? And if you enjoyed this episode, please remember to subscribe, rate and comment wherever you get your podcasts. This episode of Good Weekend Talks is produced by Kai Wong. Editing from Konrad Marshall. Tom McKendrick is head of audio and Katrina Strickland is the editor of Good Weekend.