Great Barrier Reef Can No Longer Be Saved
Great Barrier Reef Can No Longer Be Saved.
Like coral across the world, the Great Barrier Reef has been severely damaged by the warming of the oceans, with up to 95 per cent of areas surveyed in 2016 found to have been bleached. Although bleaching is not always fatal, a study last year found the largest die-off of corals ever recorded with about 67 per cent of shallow water coral found dead in a survey of a 700km stretch. Now experts on a committee set up by the Australian government to improve the health of the reef have concluded that they believe the lesser target of maintaining its ecological function is more realistic. The concept of ‘maintaining ecological function’ refers to the balance of ecological processes necessary for the reef ecosystem as a whole to persist, but perhaps in a different form, noting the composition and structure may differ from what is currently seen today.
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