The federal government’s new funding aims to spread the net wide in investigating possible ways to protect the Great Barrier Reef’s corals. Winning this battle will require a wide range of weapons.
Pause and reflect on what really makes wilderness valuable.
John O'Neill/Wikimedia Commons
Imagine being one of the last few people alive. Would that make it ok to destroy the natural world? This thought experiment reveals the true value of nature, beyond the benefits to humans.
Endangered green turtles like this one on Raine Island in Queensland’s far north face an uncertain future – one that depends largely on effective conservation measures.
AAP
With 99% of green sea turtles in the northern Great Barrier Reef hatching as females due to changing climate, the future for this species now depends largely on effective global conservation measures.
Corals near Lizard Island on the northern Great Barrier Reef experienced some of the worst bleaching in 2016.
XL Catlin Seaview Survey/AAP Photo
The 2016 bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef was the worst on record. Now a new analysis points the finger squarely at human-induced warming, and warns that the entire reef’s future is at stake.
Some reefs are strong sources of coral larvae.
Peter Mumby
A new study identifies dozens of individual reefs on the Great Barrier Reef that are especially important for coral larvae dispersal and which could help the entire ecosystem bounce back.
During mass spawning events coral young rise from their parents to ocean surface.
Australian Institute of Marine Science
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.
Would you pay more if you thought it would help?
Wikimedia Commons
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?
How the Great Barrier Reef can be helped to help repair the damaged reef.
AIMS/Neal Cantin
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.
Water quality is one of the major issues that threatens the Great Barrier Reef’s health.
AAP Image/Dan Peled
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.
Social media posts, such as this image uploaded to Flickr, can be repurposed for reef health monitoring.
Sarah Ackerman/Flickr/Wikimedia Commons
Mining social media posts from tourism hotspots such as coral reefs could turn tourists into environmental citizen scientists without them even realising it.
Parts of the Great Barrier Reef’s outer reefs can form a natural barrier to coastal recession, thus protecting urban centres.
AAP
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.
Dozens of reefs around the world have bleached in the past three years, of which the Great Barrier Reef was merely the most high-profile.
AAP Image/WWF AUSTRALIA, BIOPIXEL
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.
The Great Barrier Reef is reeling under a combination of bleaching, over-fishing and land clearing.
AP Image/Bette Willis
A full valuation of the Great Barrier Reef leads to a number so high it is essentially not worth considering in economic terms.
The southern Great Barrier Reef escaped both of the recent mass bleaching events. But time is running out.
AAP Image/ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, Tory Chase
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.
Diana Kleine using a CoralWatch chart to measure coral health.
Chris Roelfsema/CoralWatch
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.