In Sustainable Australian Travel For Dummies, my chapter on Tropical North Queensland highlighted the looming ecological disaster for one of the world's great natural wonders - the Great Barrier Reef. Not only does the Reef gobsmack you with its brilliant colour, it is one of the most important natural environments that the Planet has. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority provides some stats that give you a feel for how significant the Reef is:* it is the largest tropical coral reef in the world at 2,300km long. The next longest is only 290km long (the Belize Barrier Reef).
* the Reef is actually a formation of approximately 2,900 separate coral reefs, which only accounts for about 6 per cent of the marine park area.
* it is the largest World Heritage listed area in the world.
* at 348,000 square kilometers it is the second largest marine park in the world behind the Northwestern Hawaiian Island National Monument.
* it is home to just over 10 per cent of the world’s marine fish species and 6 of the world’s 7 marine turtle species.
* it is home to an estimated 14,000 dugongs and 130 species of shark and rays.
The sheer size of this pristine marine environment makes it hugely significant to the health of the Planet. The marine life that inhabit the waters of the Great Barrier Reef are very reliant on the Reef and the coral it supports in providing food and shelter. The Reef itself has formed from millions of years of decaying animals and plants forming limestone deposits. Coral polyps grow on the reef and assist in maintaining reef structure by depositing dissolved limestone extracted from the water through their body. The coral reef then becomes home to millions of organisms that become a rich food supply for all manner of marine life, both animal and plants.
Climate change, in particular, is threatening this unique ecological relationship between reefs and the organisms it supports. Increasing water temperatures bought about by global warming causes bleaching events that destroy the coral, thereby effecting the health of the organisms and marine life it supports. Another of the longer term impacts of coral bleaching could be that the Reef, which creates a buffer between ocean currents and the shore, is destroyed, leaving the Queensland coastline vulnerable to an increased number of storms, larger tides and other events related to the changing ocean currents.
I wrote this chapter of the book in early 2008 and only a year and a half later I am now reading that things are looking even more dire for all reefs around the world. An article on the UK's Guardian newspaper titled Why coral reefs face a catastrophic future refers to a recent report by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority stating that "the overall outlook for the Reef is poor and catastrophic damage to the ecosystem may not be averted". This article by David Adam sums up the issues very well and suggests that coral, like many other living things on the Planet, can recover, but it requires a massive decrease in carbon dioxide being emitted into the atmosphere - much more than what is being targetted for. Recovery can occur if the reef structure remains strong, even in the midst of coral bleaching. However, the amount of carbon dioxide we have emitted globally over the last 100 years has turned oceans very acidic, which is gradually destroying the structure of most reefs. This phenomenon is what is causing much of the pessimism in marine scientists.
If the pessimism is warranted, and there is no reason to suggest that it isn't, then it would surely have to rank as one of the first big global catastrophes caused purely by global warming and climate change. If a colourless and lifeless Great Barrier Reef becomes reality - remember it is one of the wonders of the world - then, as the Report states, "the path of a mass extinction event (begins), when most life, especially tropical marine life, goes extinct." The article also quotes another pessimistic expert: "I don't think reefs have much of a chance. And what's happening to reefs is a parable of what is going to happen to everything else."
My question then is: do people really understand how critical reefs are to the future health of the Planet? And do people realise how catastrophic climate change really is? Those that have visited and experienced reefs first hand might understand. If you get the chance, it might be worth your while experiencing an eco-tour of one of the remaining Reefs mentioned in the Guardian article, which includes those in the Florida Keys, Jamaica, Scarborough Reef in the South China Sea, the Hawaiian Islands and Indonesia's Seribu Islands. Added to this list should be Australia's own Ningaloo Reef, which is located off the Western Australian coastline - it's remoteness means that it has not been affected as much as the Great Barrier Reef has.
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