In the past eight years, the Great Barrier Reef — the largest coral reef in the world, stretching 1,429 miles — has experienced five mass bleaching events, tied by scientists to climate change. Most recently, corals around six islands in Turtle Group National Park, located about 6.2 miles off Australia’s Queensland Coast, have seen extensive […]
The Australian and Queensland governments have introduced a more than $160 million package to phase out the commercial gill net fishing that damages the Great Barrier Reef. The Great Barrier Reef is the largest coral reef system in the world, as well as a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Area. […]
The Australian government on Wednesday rejected a proposed open pit coal mine that would have been located less than 6.2 miles from the Great Barrier Reef.
Eight coal mining projects located in the floodplains and catchments of the Great Barrier Reef have been considered exempt from providing environmental impact reports by the Queensland government, and six of the projects have already earned state approval. Environmental groups are lobbying for an end to these exemptions.
The Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) has recorded the highest amount of coral cover in the northern and central portions of the Great Barrier Reef since it started monitoring 36 years ago, reported Phys.org.
In 1968, a photograph taken from space helped galvanize the environmental movement. The famous “Earthrise” image of our planet rising from the moon helped raise awareness about the importance of protecting humanity’s only home. “The vast loneliness is awe-inspiring and it makes you realize just what you have back there on Earth,” Command Module pilot […]
The Great Barrier Reef is the cumulative masterpiece of generations of coral building on top of one another for as many as twenty million years, according to greatbarrierreef.org. Located in the Coral Sea, the 1,429-mile-long reef is the greatest living structure on Earth and is host to many species of marine life, including sponges, coral, […]
Three years ago, Australia was supposed to have its “climate change election.” Polls had predicted a win for Labor, which had promised to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 45 percent by 2030, and nearly two-thirds of Australians agreed that the climate crisis was a major problem that required action. Despite this, the conservative Liberal-National coalition […]
More than 90 percent of the Great Barrier Reef was impacted by coral bleaching during the Australian summer of 2021-2022. This is the conclusion of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, which released the results Tuesday of aerial surveys taken of 719 reefs between Torres Strait and the Capricorn Bunker Group. “The surveys confirm […]