Line K Bay, Australian Institute of Marine Science; Andrew Heyward, Australian Institute of Marine Science, and Andrew Negri, Australian Institute of Marine Science
Every year buoyant bundles rise from a spawning coral, giving the impression of an upside-down snowstorm.
Is Australia undervaluing its most valuable natural asset by only charging $6.50 a day to visit the Great Barrier Reef? And would it help if tourists were asked to pay more?
Corals on the Great Barrier Reef that are tolerant to warmer waters can be used to help repair other parts of the reef damaged by recent coral bleaching events.
The updated plan for improving water quality on the Great Barrier Reef still doesn’t address the need to curb intensively farmed crops such as sugar cane, and to enforce existing environmental laws.
Mining social media posts from tourism hotspots such as coral reefs could turn tourists into environmental citizen scientists without them even realising it.
Coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef could lead to increased vulnerability of Queensland coastal cities and towns, and not only through its impacts on the tourism industry.
Amid fears for the world’s coral reefs, the UN World Heritage Committee has issued its most wide-ranging statement so far on protecting heritage sites from climate. But the problem doesn’t end there.
Tropical coral reefs can be saved from climate change and other pressures, but the window of opportunity is closing. And reefs are guaranteed to be markedly different in the future.
For the first time the Great Barrier Reef has been hit by mass bleaching in consecutive years, with only the reef’s southernmost stretches having escaped both events unscathed.
The Great Barrier Reef is in crisis, as a second wave of coral bleaching hits. But the system of bodies and laws that protect it are getting more complicated – and less productive.
New research has uncovered a whole new way to combat the devastating crown-of-thorns starfish, by decoding the pheromones that they use to communicate.
The Great Barrier Reef is bleaching again. Without greater action on climate change and water quality, its World Heritage status could be listed as “in danger”.
In a year of coral bleaching, power blackouts, electricity arguments and Donald Trump, 2016 made the previous year’s climate of environmental optimism rather difficult to maintain.