Dive operators in the Great Barrier Reef were given rare permission to touch corals in the wake of Cyclone Debbie as part of efforts to save them.
The head of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority said several creative efforts to save corals were made after the storm wreaked havoc on the Whitsundays region in late March.
"There's a short window when if you turn a coral over it will survive," Russell Reicholt told a Senate committee in Canberra on Monday.
"We lifted the normal ban on touching coral for the couple of weeks that opportunity was there and a lot of the operators did that and were grateful for the recognition there's something they could be doing."
The authority also returned boulders and dead corals washed up on the beaches to deep water to create structures for new corals to grow on.
"The massive waves were lifting corals the size of small vehicles up and out of the water," Dr Reicholt said.
"They would be dead but their structure is important and we rolled them back into the ocean."
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