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By law the National Parks preserve their natural, historic, and scenic resources in perpetuity, for the benefit and enjoyment of the public. Challenging that mandate coral scientists now despair that coral reefs worldwide, including those within National Parks, will suffer substantial mortality over the next few decades from global warming. Forecasts developed as widespread mortality of corals began in the early 1980s, increasing frequency of extraordinary warm ocean waters, and emphasized in 1997-98 when corals around the world were devastated by increased ocean temperatures in that warmest year on record.

The National Park Service responded to this threat by staffing Pacific Islands' parks with marine scientists, incorporating Pacific park marine environments among those ecosystems to be monitored by a service-wide Inventory and Monitoring Program, and by funding substantial coral reef studies through this Pacific Islands Cooperative Studies Unit. View the First Decade of Pacific Parks' Coral Reef Program.

Additionally, the National Parks' legislative direction to preserve these natural resources in perpetuity was augmented by the recent Coral Reef Conservation Act: