SEMINAR: Securing the future of the Great Barrier Reef

The Great Barrier Reef is a valuable natural asset that provides $6 billion per annum to the Australian economy and supports more than 50,000 jobs, primarily in tourism. It’s an irreplaceable resource, a national and international icon, and it is slowly declining. In the past 50years more than half of the corals have disappeared, and the number of sharks, dugongs and turtles today is a small fraction of only a few decades ago. Increasing fishing pressure has made it harder to catch a decent-sized fish. Three major outbreaks of crown-of-thorns starfish have swept along the GBR since the 1960s, and a fourth is underway. In 1998 and again in 2002, global warming caused coral bleaching along the length of the Reef leading to further loss of corals. Since 2000, more than half of the individual reefs comprising the Great Barrier Reef have less than 10% coral cover, compared to an average of close to 40% in the 1960s. Many people assume that the decline is caused primarily by cyclones and crown-of-thorns starfish, but it’s not that simple. In this talk, I investigate the impact of recruitment failure on the abundance and species composition of corals across the GreatBarrier Reef. I’ll conclude with an overview of how management of the Great Barrier Reef could be improved.