Florida Reef Resilience Program

The Florida Reef Resilience Program (FRRP) is one of the largest and longest-running coordinated coral condition monitoring programs in the world. It is a truly collaborative effort bringing together more than a dozen federal and state agencies, nonprofit organizations, and university partners*, to improve and sustain the health of Florida’s coral reefs and the industries that depend on them. The FRRP has a unique history, growing from a program to encourage knowledge and best practices sharing between the managers of the renowned Great Barrier Reef and stakeholders of the Florida Reef System.

FRRP’s stewardship of the Florida Reef System includes work to identify and track the health and status of coral reefs, understand underlying factors that lead to and maintain resilience, and inform efforts to reduce negative impacts and stressors on reefs. Throughout FRRP’s history, partners have successfully worked together in four main program areas: Disturbance Response Monitoring, Human Dimensions of Reef Resilience, Communications and Outreach, and Supporting Coral Reef Management and Sustainable Uses.

Florida is exemplary in terms of marine managed areas and hosts one of the first designated marine protected areas in the world, John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park established in 1963.

In addition, many of Florida’s coral reefs are protected and managed within the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, Dry Tortugas National Park and Biscayne National Park, Dr. Von D. Mizell-Eula Johnson State Park, St. Lucie Inlet Preserve State Park, and four coastal National Wildlife Refuges in the five county region—Great White Heron, Key West, National Key Deer, and Hobe Sound.

Most of the reefs of the northern extension of the Florida Reef System, from the northern border of Biscayne National Park in Miami-Dade County to the St. Lucie Inlet in Martin County, are overseen by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s Coral Reef Conservation Program which is developing new management strategies for the region through the Southeast Florida Coral Reef Initiative.

*FRRP Program Partners: The Nature Conservancy, Biscayne National Park, Broward County, Community Foundation for Palm Beach and Martin Counties, Dry Tortugas National Park, Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Florida Institute of Technology, Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, Martin County, Miami-Dade County, Mote Marine Laboratory, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Nova Southeastern University, Palm Beach County, Southeast Florida Coral Reef Initiative, University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, University of South Florida Institute for Marine Remote Sensing.