With a diverse team of scientists, conservationists and policy makers we will collect local knowledge and ecological measurements to map out future scenarios for one of the richest reefs in the world, the Bird’s Head Seascape (BHS), in West Papua, Indonesia. While most coral reef studies focus on pathways of degradation, we aim to beat the system to the punch and use our gained knowledge of interactions and dynamics of the local social-ecological system to identify pathways to build resilience against current threats such as climate change and increasing tourism.