The coast alongside the Great Barrier Reef is home to ports, farms, holiday resorts, and more than a million people. It all puts pressure on the Reef, and it’s time for some firms plans to manage it.
L’expertise universitaire, l’exigence journalistique
Great Barrier Reef – Analyses
The Great Barrier Reef is home to some 1,600 species of bony fish, 130 sharks and rays, and turtles, mammals and more. Most have had no population monitoring, meaning we don’t know how well they are faring.
The United Nations is set to decide whether to add the Great Barrier Reef to the List of World Heritage in Danger. But what is the list, and what does it mean for the places that are on it?
Port traffic near the Great Barrier Reef will more than double by 2025, as coal and other exports grow. While major incidents are rare, the chronic toll on the reef itself still remains largely unknown.
Successive plans to curb the sediments, nutrients and pesticides flowing into the waters around the Great Barrier Reef have fallen short, leaving the corals that call the reef home highly vulnerable.
With the United Nations set to decide on whether to list the Great Barrier Reef as officially in danger, we look at the various threats to the reef’s survival, starting with the biggie… climate change.
Amid talk of paths to surplus and investing in infrastructure, both sides of politics seem to have forgotten Australia’s longstanding responsibility to govern sustainably, and not just for the economy.
Environment minister Greg Hunt hasn’t asked for any more money for the Emissions Reduction Fund. So what is actually in the budget, as far as climate change is concerned?
The Federal Budget 2015 makes little mention of emissions reductions or renewable energy, but does feature funding boosts for drought assistance and the Great Barrier Reef. What else is in?
The government says it has met all of the recommendations for safeguarding the Great Barrier Reef. But a close reading of the dozens of UN recommendations shows that many have been only partly fulfilled.
Fishing is a major threat to the Great Barrier Reef, but new research shows that areas closed to fishing just over a decade ago are home to bigger and more fish.
A new report aims to establish exactly what we do and don’t know about the effects of dredging on the Great Barrier Reef, and suggests that managing fine sediments will be one of the biggest challenges.
New plans to ban dredging on the Great Barrier Reef and dump dredge spoil on land won’t save the reef.
The Australian government’s latest report on the Great Barrier Reef, submitted to the UNESCO World Heritage Centre last Friday, has been carefully crafted and word-smithed, with many of its claims supported…
Crown-of-thorns starfish are one of the biggest threats to the Great Barrier Reef. Since 1985, the Great Barrier Reef has lost half its coral cover, with almost half of this coral loss due to the crown-of-thorns…
The Great Barrier Reef is a national and global icon, inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1981. Since then, it’s become apparent that this vast array of marine ecosystems – stretching along 2,300 kilometres…
A new legal challenge to the proposed Carmichael coal mine – Australia’s largest – will test in the federal court whether climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions should be taken into account…
Coral reefs are the poster child for the damage people are doing to the world’s oceans. Overfishing, pollution and declining water quality have all taken their toll on reefs around the world. Perhaps the…
Consensus is growing that we are steering towards a sixth mass extinction event. There are calls for increased efforts to stop the accelerating loss of plants and animals. But do we really need to protect…
Want a single word to sum up environmental affairs in 2014? Let’s go with “heated”. The year began with the realisation that 2013 was Australia’s hottest ever (and yes, it’s because of us), and ended with…
The Australian government has stepped up its campaign this month to prevent the Great Barrier Reef being listed as a World Heritage site “in danger” at international meetings next year. The World Heritage…
The Great Barrier Reef is in trouble, and a draft government plan to ensure its survival does not go far enough. A number of submissions including those from the Australian Academy of Science and Environmental…
Reef historian Iain McCalman, in Sydney, and reef scientist Stephen Palumbi, in California, are monitoring reef degradation from opposite sides of the planet. They compared notes. Iain McCalman: A recent…
Before the 2013 election, Tony Abbott gave us fair warning that he would turn the clock back on the environment. As promised, his government has devoted itself to short-term economics and the sort of hardline…
Tonight’s Four Corners on ABC investigates dredging at ports on the Great Barrier Reef, including claims that the federal government is reportedly seeking alternatives to dumping dredge spoil at sea at…