Millions of people depend on coral reefs for their income and livelihoods. For example, the Great Barrier Reef alone contributes over $5 billion annually to Australia's economy . Coral reefs are particularly important for fisheries, tourism, and coastal protection, but also have high aesthetic values and some reefs have spiritual values. Climate change is considered a key threat to coral reefs and to marine fisheries. Climate-related events, such as increased sea surface temperatures (which can cause corals to bleach and die), can have profound impacts on coral reef ecosystems and the people that depend on them. To illustrate, in 1998, coral bleaching at an unprecedented scale caused widespread coral mortality across most of the western Indian Ocean, altering the goods and services provided by these reefs. Further east, in the central Indo-Pacific, Indonesia is expected to experience the most severe climate-related declines in total marine fisheries of any nation, with projected reductions of over 20% by 2055. Resource users may also have to adapt the ways that they use coral reefs in response to management measures that aim to make coral reefs more resilient to the impacts of climate change (for example, the creation of marine reserves that prohibit fishing). Thus, questions of critical importance to resource managers, stakeholders, and scientists alike are how
reef-dependant societies are being affected by, and what capacity they have to adapt to, climate change impacts.