Great Barrier Reef operators sign-up for 'The Last Straw' to tackle plastics

More than 30 tourism operators in Cairns and Port Douglas have signed-up to ban plastic straws at businesses within the Great Barrier Reef.

The 11 billion pieces of plastic in Asia-Pacific
oceans are tipped to increase 40 percent by 2025.

Founder of The Last Straw on the GBR, Nicole Nash, who is also a marine biologist, said plastic straws are ending up in the bellies of turtles and other marine life.

"Straws are something that people don't think twice about using," Ms Nash said.

Read the ABC News story by Kristy Sexton-McGrath - "Great Barrier Reef operators sign-up for 'The Last Straw' to tackle plastics.”

Back-to-back bleaching has now hit two-thirds of the Great Barrier Reef

Corals on the Great Barrier Reef have bleached again in 2017 as a result of extreme summer temperatures. It’s the fourth such event and the second in as many years, following earlier mass bleachings in 1998, 2002 and 2016.

The unprecedented back-to-back bleaching has stretched
across a huge swathe of the Great Barrier Reef.

The consecutive bleaching in 2016 and 2017 is concerning for two reasons. First, the 12-month gap between the two events is far too short for any meaningful recovery on reefs that were affected in 2016.

Second, last year’s bleaching was most severe in the northern section of the reef, from the Torres Strait to Port Douglas, whereas this year the most intense bleaching has occurred further south, between Cooktown and Townsville. The combined footprint of this unprecedented back-to-back bleaching now stretches along two-thirds of the length of the Great Barrier Reef.

Read the piece on The Conversation - “Back-to-back bleaching has now hit two-thirds of the Great Barrier Reef.”

No new funding or climate commitments in Great Barrier Reef update

Queensland's Environment
Minister, Steve Miles.

An Australian government update on what it is doing to protect the wounded Great Barrier Reef includes no new funding and no new commitments to tackle the biggest threat to its health, climate change.

The update to the UNESCO World Heritage Centre says good progress has been made since federal and state governments last year committed to a 35-year plan to improve the reef's health, but it falls short of what scientists believe is necessary.

It follows the release of fresh surveys of coral death due to inflated ocean temperatures last summer. The ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies estimated 67 per cent of coral has died in shallow reefs north of Port Douglas, compared with just 1 per cent mortality south of Mackay.

In a foreword to the report, Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg and his Queensland counterpart Steven Miles say the reef has been severely affected by mass coral bleaching, and that climate change is "the single biggest threat to reefs worldwide - and the Great Barrier Reef is no exception".

Read Adam Morton’s story in today’s Melbourne Age - “No new funding or climate commitments in Great Barrier Reef update.”

Great Barrier Reef is losing its adjective - Tim Flannery

Tim Flannery disillusioned after a
dive at the Great Barrier Reef.

A few weeks ago I dived the Great Barrier Reef, near Port Douglas. It was one of the saddest days of my life. I am haunted by what I've seen. And infuriated.

I had come with hope, for some recovery at least from the largest coral bleaching event on record. But what I found was worse than I could have imagined. The Great Barrier Reef is losing its adjective.

Most of the reef's usually vibrant staghorn and plate corals are covered with an ugly green slime. Even some of the massive stony corals – the hardiest of all – are scarred with the tell-tale white of bleaching. The reef's diverse and stunning fish population are starving.

A green turtle passes by. As the dead reef breaks down, its habitat will be eroded to rubble. And climate change is affecting the species in other ways. Rising seas have massively degraded its most important nesting site – Raine Island in the northern Great Barrier Reef. Those same rising waters caused, around 2011, the first mammal extinction brought about directly by climate change, when the entire habitat of the Bramble Key melomys (a native rodent unique to the Great Barrier Reef) was destroyed by saltwater intrusion.

Read Tim Flannery’s opinion piece in today’s Melbourne Age - “The Great Barrier Reef is losing its adjective and it's our fault.”