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Encyclopedia of Environmental Issues, 3rd Edition

Great Barrier Reef and preservation efforts

by Joseph Dewey

Fields of Study: Biology; Ecology; Ecosystem Management; Environmental Science; Marine Biology; Oceanography;

Significance: Massive oceanic ecosystem off the northeast coast of Australia

Despite ongoing efforts to protect and preserve the Great Barrier Reef, the survival of this intricate and delicate ecosystem is constantly threatened by both natural events and human activities.

Overview

The Great Barrier Reef is a biodiverse ecosystem of more than three thousand coral reefs and seven hundred individual islands (some barely a few yards across, but twenty-seven of them large enough to have tourist resorts) that follows the Australian coast off the state of Queensland. With its tremendous size (at more than 337,000 square kilometers, or 130,000 square miles, it is visible from space) and its compelling beauty, the reef enthralls the imagination apart from its value as an intricate ecosystem. It is, in a sense, a single living organism—although more precisely it is a colony of millions of tiny coral polyps (living creatures inside colored hard shells of aragonite, a calcium derivative that shapes the familiar fan and branch shapes of coral) that live atop the dead, bleached remains of earlier generations, building slowly, steadily, century after century, into an incredibly dense superorganism.

Within this vast construction of accumulated coral structures (most of it just feet below the ocean’s surface) thrives a diverse ecosystem in the pristine tropical waters that includes a wide variety of animal and plant species, among them green sea turtles, sharks, porpoises, whales, crocodiles, dugongs, and snakes, as well as more than one thousand species of fish and more than two hundred species of both land and marine birds. The Great Barrier Reef was designated a World Heritage Site in 1981 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), a recognition reserved for natural and cultural sites deemed an irreplaceable part of humanity’s heritage.

Protecting the natural integrity and rich biodiversity of the massive reef is the special mission of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, an oversight committee of the Queensland state government. In addition to natural threats—including cyclones, disease, and periodic infestations of crown-of-thorns starfish that attack the coral polyps—the most prominent threat measured since the 1990s has come from slowly rising ocean temperatures from the effects of El Niño weather conditions and, increasingly, global warming linked to humans’ exponential burning of fossil fuels and subsequent release of greenhouse gases over the years. These effects have consistently warmed the ocean’s waters to higher temperatures than normal, which results in bleaching, the loss of tiny plants in the polyps that provide the coral its nutrients and in turn its rich coloring. That loss kills the coral itself. An extensive survey conducted by scientists in 2016 found that there was a large amount of coral bleaching occurring over a significant stretch of the reef; that year, the earth had also experienced one of the hottest years on record. Following this observation, a team of scientists confirmed by early 2017, after conducting another survey, that in a large section of the reef north of Port Douglas, 67 percent of the corals had died and may not recover. In addition, the reef has been affected by changes in fish migrations that have resulted from overharvesting, by unchecked pollution from land-based industries, and, most directly, by fertilizers and pesticides carried into the ocean by a river system that collects irrigation

Astronaut made photograph of the Great Barrier Reef. Far Northern Section of the Great Barrier Reef. Northern Cooktown, Queensland: Cape Melville (right). NASA

ENVIs2e_p0630_1.jpg

runoff from the scores of farms in northeastern Australia.

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority also monitors the impacts of the more than two million visitors the reef attracts annually, an influx that accounts for close to $2 billion each year for the Australian tourism industry. More than five thousand commercial vessels cross the reef annually, ferrying scuba divers, snorkelers, and even people who want to walk the reef’s formations that lie closest to the surface. The authority monitors every aspect of these invasive encounters, from the effects of suntan oil on the formations to the impacts of fuel dumped by boats. Despite such protection, the Great Barrier Reef, because of the intricacy of its ecosystem and the fragility of its construction, is considered among the most threatened natural sites on the earth.

Further Reading

1 

Bowen, James, and Margarita Bowen. The Great Barrier Reef: History, Science, Heritage. Cambridge University Press, 2003.

2 

Cave, Damien, and Justin Gillis. “Large Sections of Australia’s Great Reef Are Now Dead, Scientists Find.” The New York Times, 15 Mar. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/03/15/science/great-barrier-reef-coral-climate-change-dieoff.html. Accessed 6 Apr. 2017.

3 

“Great Barrier Reef.” Australian Marine Conservation Society, 2016, www.marineconservation.org.au/pages/great-barrier-reef.html. Accessed 28 Nov. 2016.

4 

Sapp, Jan. What Is Natural? Coral Reef Crisis. Oxford University Press, 2003.

5 

Veron, J. E. N. A Reef in Time: The Great Barrier Reef from Beginning to End. Harvard University Press, 2010.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
Dewey, Joseph. "Great Barrier Reef And Preservation Efforts." Encyclopedia of Environmental Issues, 3rd Edition, edited by Richard Renneboog, Salem Press, 2019. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=ENVIs2e_0333.
APA 7th
Dewey, J. (2019). Great Barrier Reef and preservation efforts. In R. Renneboog (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Environmental Issues, 3rd Edition. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Dewey, Joseph. "Great Barrier Reef And Preservation Efforts." Edited by Richard Renneboog. Encyclopedia of Environmental Issues, 3rd Edition. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2019. Accessed September 17, 2025. online.salempress.com.