Government confirms devastating mass bleaching event
Sydney, Australia:
Australia’s famed Great Barrier Reef is experiencing a “mass bleaching event” as warming oceans threaten the spectacular home to thousands of marine species, authorities said on Friday.
Often called the world’s largest living structure, the Great Barrier Reef is a 2,300-kilometer (1,400-mile) stretch of tropical coral that is home to stunning biodiversity.
But recurring mass bleaching events have threatened the tourist appeal, turning once-vibrant coral a sickly white.
“We know the biggest threat to coral reefs around the world is climate change. The Great Barrier Reef is no exception,” Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek said in a statement.
“We need to take action on climate change. We need to protect our special places and the plants and animals that call them home.”
The devastating mass bleaching event, the seventh since 1998, was confirmed by government scientists following aerial surveys of 300 shallow reefs.
The Australian Coral Reef Authority said further investigations are now needed to assess the severity and extent of the bleaching.
Coral bleaching occurs when underwater temperatures are more than 1 degree above the long-term average.
When corals are thermally stressed, they expel algae living within their tissues, draining them of their vibrant colors.
Ocean temperatures along the Great Barrier Reef have reached near-record levels over the past few weeks, according to official monitoring.
Richard Lake, head of oceans at World Wildlife Fund Australia, said large numbers of corals could die if ocean temperatures don’t cool quickly in the coming weeks.
“This bleaching event occurred in an area where corals have never been exposed to such extreme temperatures before,” he said.
Lake said climate change was “putting huge pressure” on the Great Barrier Reef.
Lake added that the current bleaching event follows a similar setback in the Northern Hemisphere last year that resulted in massive coral die-offs in Florida and the Caribbean.
It turns out that some bleached coral species are extremely resilient and can recover if ocean temperatures drop.
But Professor Terry Hughes, one of Australia’s leading coral reef scientists, says bleaching events are now happening so frequently that reefs are struggling to recover.
recovery from danger
“Coral reefs can no longer return to the mix of coral species and coral sizes they had 20 years ago,” he told AFP.
“Ironically, the corals that are now prevalent across much of the Great Barrier Reef are growing rapidly and quickly regaining cover, but what’s worse is that they are heat sensitive and less tolerant of the next inevitable beach event .”
Heat stress has increased over the past few days and is likely to worsen over the next two weeks, Hughes said.
The fate of the Great Barrier Reef has been a source of tension between the Australian government and the United Nations World Heritage Committee.
The World Heritage Committee has threatened to place the coral reef on its list of “endangered” global heritage sites, a move that could damage its appeal to international tourists.
Australia’s behind-the-scenes diplomacy and intense lobbying have so far kept it off the list.
Prior to this event, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef suffered large-scale coral bleaching in 1998, 2002, 2016, 2017, 2020 and 2022.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
