Key Points
- The Great Barrier Reef Outlook report by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority was published this week.
- An independent expert group said the report's key findings "gloss over the gravity of the situation".
- Earlier this year, a UN body stopped short of declaring the Great Barrier Reef "in danger" in a draft decision.
Biodiversity experts have criticised the release of the Great Barrier Reef's latest outlook report, saying the summaries provided fail to capture the significance of the report's findings.
The latest Great Barrier Reef Outlook Report prepared by the Australian government's Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority was published this week and, over 634 pages, details research into the reef's health.
However, the Biodiversity Council — an independent expert group founded by 11 Australian universities — said the " gloss over the gravity of the situation".
The "Great Barrier Reef is in very serious trouble" and the "upbeat tone of the key findings contrast with the troubling detail held within the report", one Biodiversity Council member said.
What were the report's key findings?
The 13 key findings published on the said that, while the integrity of the reef "continues to be challenged", several reef habitats "remain in good to very good condition overall, including mangroves and islands".
The findings also said the "current condition of coral reef habitats (for the period ending December 2023) across the Great Barrier Reef has improved" and there were "relatively few intense disturbances" to the reef over the research period.
While they acknowledged that global warming will "compound impacts" on the reef, the key findings also said that "every effective action taken now contributes to a more positive long-term outlook" for the reef off the coast of north Queensland.
The , also published on the Marine Park Authority's website, was more detailed and said that, while there have been some improvements on the reef, the overall condition of the reef is poor and conservation issues are being compounded by climate change.
The summary said that, while "recent recovery in some ecosystem values demonstrates that the Reef is still resilient, its capacity to tolerate and recover is jeopardised by a rapidly changing climate".
Experts criticise Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority
Professor Catherine Lovelock, a coastal ecosystems expert from the University of Queensland, said the key findings published with the report do not accurately reflect the research contained within the Outlook Report.
"The upbeat tone of the key findings contrast with the troubling detail within the report," Lovelock said.
"Climate change poses the greatest threat to the Great Barrier Reef. We must keep that front of mind and call for greater climate action."
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The Biodiversity Council said the substance of the Outlook Report shows the "reef is in major long-term decline despite the modest investments that have been made".
It also said that reversing declines in sea turtle, shark, dugong and seabird populations "requires decades of investment".
Marine turtle expert and lead councillor of the Biodiversity Council Nicki Mitchell said the report "paints a grim picture for Queensland's sea turtle populations" and that climate change is "already having a direct impact on nest success and sex ratios".
Chief scientist of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, Roger Beeden, told SBS News the Outlook Report for this year — and previous years — ends with a prognosis for the reef and has been represented accurately.
"I would contend, as would my colleagues, that we have been absolutely clear that the greatest threat to the Great Barrier Reef is climate change and we've been documenting the vulnerability and actually, the consequences of climate change on the reef in all four of the reports and highlighting how significant a challenge that is."
Beeden said the past five years on the Great Barrier Reef have been a "mixed bag" due to a lack of disturbance from major environmental factors such as major cyclones allowing for some improvements in certain habitats.
"I think that the core messaging here is really we're absolutely clear that we need to stay as close to 1.5 degrees as possible for the future of the Great Barrier Reef and, for that matter, all reefs around the world."
Coral bleaching
The publication of the Outlook Report follows a study published in Nature journal earlier this month that found last summer the reef experienced some of the hottest waters in 400 years.
The Marine Park Authority's report did not include the details of and the reef authority said it would provide updates on the impacts of this event over the next 12 months.
By analysing coral cores, the authors of the Nature report were able to model the surface temperature of the Coral Sea back to 1618 and found 2016, 2017, 2020, 2022, and 2024 are among the warmest years on record.
The finding shocked the researchers who warned that climate change is responsible for back-to-back coral bleaching events.
Benjamin Henley, a climate change impacts researcher from the University of Melbourne, told SBS News he was stunned when he analysed the data on water temperature in the Great Barrier Reef.
"Sadly, this year was the most extreme sea surface temperature for January to March in the last 400 years in the Coral Sea. Yeah, we were really shocked. Until now we didn't have a good understanding of what past centuries looked like in good detail."
Henley warned are becoming an annual event and that back-to-back bleaching "thwarts the attempts by the corals to recover".
"That means that the whole structure of the Great Barrier Reef is likely to change in the future," he said.
Earlier this year, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) stopped short of declaring the Great Barrier Reef "in danger" in a draft decision that was hailed by the Australian government.
UNESCO to its List of World Heritage in Danger.
The World Heritage Committee will take a final vote on UNESCO's advice concerning the Great Barrier Reef in September.
With additional reporting by Naveen Razik
