Great Barrier Reef Has Greatest Coral Cover Ever Recorded Although The Media Has Reported Its Extinction For Years

Australia’s famous Great Barrier Reef (GBR) recently documented the greatest coral cover ever recorded, despite years of reports that the GBR was on the precipice of total annihilation.

According to a press release from the Australian Institute of Marine Institute (AIMS), ‘In the 87 representative reefs surveyed between August 2021 and May 2022 under the AIMS Long-Term Monitoring Program (LTMP), average hard coral cover in the region north of Cooktown increased to 36% (from 27% in 2021) and to 33% in the central Great Barrier Reef (from 26% in 2021).’

Notwithstanding, ‘average coral cover in the southern region (from Proserpine to Gladstone) decreased from 38% in 2021 to 34%,’ AIMS reported.

A third of the gain in coral cover we recorded in the south in 2020/21 was lost last year due to ongoing crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks.

This shows how vulnerable the Reef is to the continued acute and severe disturbances that are occurring more often, and are longer-lasting.

In our 36 years of monitoring the condition of the Great Barrier Reef we have not seen bleaching events so close together.

Every summer the Reef is at risk of temperature stress, bleaching and potentially mortality and our understanding of how the ecosystem responds to that is still developing. 

The 2020 and 2022 bleaching events, while extensive, didn’t reach the intensity of the 2016 and 2017 events and, as a result, we have seen less mortality. These latest results demonstrate the Reef can still recover in periods free of intense disturbances.

Dr. Paul Hardisty, AIMS CEO

One marine biologist, however, still noted that climate change played a factor in years of decline in the reef’s coral spread.

The peak of the most recent bleaching event in March occurred when the accumulated heat stress caused widespread bleaching but not extensive mortality.

The increasing frequency of warming ocean temperatures and the extent of mass bleaching events highlights the critical threat climate change poses to all reefs, particularly while crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks and tropical cyclones are also occurring. Future disturbance can reverse the observed recovery in a short amount of time.

Dr. Mike Emslie

Be that is it may, The Blaze noted a handful of headlines from years past that lamented that GBR was destined for extinction, surpassing the point of fixing the problem.

• “The Great and Dying Barrier Reef.” – (New York Times, 2016)
• “Large Sections of Australia’s Great Reef Are Now Dead” – (NYT, 2017)
• “Damage to Great Barrier Reef From Global Warming Is Irreversible, Scientists Say” – (NYT, 2018)
• “The Great Barrier Reef is being battered by climate change, it might only get worse” – (The Washington Post, 2019)
• “Half of the Great Barrier Reef’s coral is gone. It might never recover” – (TWP, 2020)
• “Climate warming deals yet another blow to the Great Barrier” (TWP, this year)
• “Climate change is killing the Great Barrier Reef” (PBS, 2017)
• “Experts say the time to take action is now, and if nothing is done, this world wonder as we know it today could be gone by 2050″ (Business Insider, 2020)
• Outside wrote an obituary for the GBR in 2016

‘UNESCO considered labeling the Reef as “in danger” after the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority reported “low to moderate bleaching” of the natural wonder,’ according to The Guardian in March of this year.

The WinePress has reported on how Australia’s increasing climate initiatives are actually damaging and harming the land.

Green Climate Initiatives Are Destroying Australia’s Grasslands

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AUTHOR COMMENTARY

And they will deceive every one his neighbour, and will not speak the truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies, and weary themselves to commit iniquity.

Jeremiah 9:5

While the GBR has definitely seen points of decline, just like all the climate rhetoric and propaganda jammed down our throats for years, it simply is not true, and a total over exaggeration of the facts once again.

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[7] Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? [8] Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? [9] For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? [10] Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1 Corinthians 9:7-10).

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