Scientists from three Aussie universities have commenced an ambitious attempt to rescue and rebuild the Great Barrier Reef after it was badly damaged by climate-related coral bleaching. 

The "Larval Restoration Project" involves harvesting millions of coral eggs and sperm during their annual spawning.  Scientists will use these to grow coral larvae, which will be returned to parts of the reef that have suffered the most damage.  Large swathes of the reef have turned a lifeless, ghastly white because of the unprecedented successive years of severe bleaching in 2016 and 2017.

"This is the first time that the entire process of large scale larval rearing and settlement will be undertaken directly on reefs on the Great Barrier Reef," said one of the project's leaders, Peter Harrison of Southern Cross University.  "Our team will be restoring hundreds of square meters with the goal of getting to square kilometres in the future, a scale not attempted previously."

There are fears that the reef has been damaged permanently, and reseeding alone will not be enough to set it right again.

"Climate action is the only way to ensure coral reefs can survive into the future," said Professor Harrison.  "Our approach to reef restoration aims to buy time for coral populations to survive and evolve until emissions are capped and our climate stabilises."

Experts from James Cook University and the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) are also playing major roles in the project.