Outlook For Great Barrier Reef Now ‘Very Poor’

“Significant global action to address climate change is critical to slowing the deterioration of the reef’s ecosystem and heritage values and supporting recovery,” the report said.

“Such actions will complement and greatly increase the effectiveness of local management actions in the Reef and its catchment.”

Today’s report is the third issued by the agency, which has tracked the continuing deterioration of the reef since 2009 – largely studying the area of coral killed or damaged by bleaching. 

The report said the threats to wildlife, which include the future of the star-of-thorns starfish which prey on coral, are “multiple, cumulative and increasing.”

Authority chairman Ian Poiner said: “The accumulation of impacts, through time and over an increasing area, is reducing its ability to recover from disturbances, with implications for reef-dependent communities and industries.

“The overall outlook for the Great Barrier Reef is very poor.”

A study of coral bleaching on the reef, published in the journal Nature in 2017, found 91% of the coral reef had been bleached at least once during three bleaching events of the past two decades, the most serious event occurring in 2016.

A fourth major bleaching struck later in 2017 after the Nature study was published.