The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts that 70 to 90% of warm-water reefs will disappear this century even if warming is constrained to 1.5°C (1). But the corals of the northern Red Sea are thermally resilient and likely to survive IPCC warming projections (2, 3). Egypt’s territorial waters contain about 1800 km of fringing reef (4) and include almost the entire western half of the resilient region in the northern Red Sea. Although Egypt’s corals can tolerate the rising temperatures that are decimating reefs elsewhere, they face severe local threats, including unsustainable tourism, coastal development, sewage discharge, and desalination plant discharge (5). Interventions are urgently needed to improve coral conservation.