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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.