Disney.com.au
Supported by the Disney Conservation Fund (DCF), Citizens of the Reef has announced the expansion of the Great Reef Census to Hawai‘i.
The Great Reef Census, one of the largest citizen science programs in the world’s oceans, will be expanding beyond Australia's Great Barrier Reef for the first time in collaboration with local coral reef conservation and restoration non-profit, Kuleana Coral Restoration.
Now in Hawai’i, The Great Reef Census conducted in-water surveys and collected reef imagery from O’ahu Island, Maui and Kauai between April and June 2025. This dataset is now ready for analysis by a global Virtual Volunteer workforce, built by Citizens of the Reef since their inception in 2020 and growing everyday.
The Walt Disney Company ANZ has supported Citizens of the Reef on the project since 2021, with Disney VoluntEARS from across the world helping to analyse tens of thousands of coral reef images. The 2024 campaign overtook the prior year’s record as the largest Virtual Volunteering event in Disney’s history, with more than 18,000 analyses completed by Disney VoluntEARS from 81 locations worldwide.
Aulani, Disney’s Resort & Spa in Ko Olina, Hawai‘i is also providing opportunities for its guests to get involved through fun and immersive experiences at Rainbow Reef, O‘ahu’s only private snorkeling lagoon, where they can learn more about identifying coral while swimming among hundreds of reef fish.
“To drive conservation at the scale now required for reefs around the world, we need to mobilise local reef communities, leading scientists, and people power to target and act on the best places for intervention and conservation impact.
The significant support from Disney in scalable marine conservation will be a gamechanger for the Great Reef Census, enabling the project to go beyond the Great Barrier Reef to reefs around the world,” says Andy Ridley, CEO of Citizens of the Reef.
“Disney is committed to protecting the magic of nature and inspiring people to take action for a healthier planet. We’re proud to support the global expansion of the Great Reef Census as it can offer anyone around the world the opportunity to have a real and consequential conservation benefit on coral reefs,” says Yalmaz Siddiqui, Vice President, Environmental Sustainability at The Walt Disney Company.
You can get involved and analyse Hawaii images at greatreefcensus.org/aloha
