Imagine you and your family went on a holiday to The Great Barrier Reef and you decided to go snorkelling but all you see is dead coral and no signs of fish. Well this is actually what is happening to our reef. Over the past 30 years we have witnessed it lose about 50% of its coral. The Great Barrier Reef is deteriorating at an alarming rate and we as Australians must stop it. What is really killing our reef? The coal industry, coral bleaching and poor water quality is how we are killing our beautiful reef. If we want our children’s children to see this wonder of nature then we must act now to protect it. The Great Barrier Reef is dying, almost all of its coral is absent and a tremendous new coal mine was recently approved. The coal mine will cover over 200 sq. km and produce tonnes of coal a year, located in Queensland, 400km from the reef. Coal itself is damaging the reef with its microscopic fragments still finding its way into our water. As a …show more content…
What is coral bleaching? Coral bleaching occurs when the water is too warm; coral extrudes the algae that live in the corals tissue causing it to turn completely white. Minority of the corals can survive and feed themselves but uttermost corals can’t survive without the algae. Our Australian scientists have identified the extent of the coral bleaching that is proceeding on our reef. The final results showed that 93% of our reef has been impacted by the bleaching. “We’ve never seen anything like this scale of bleaching before. In the northern Great Barrier Reef, it’s like 10 cyclones have come ashore all at once,” says Professor Terry Hughes. As this phenomenon continues it’s estimated that up to 50% of the currently bleached coral will die. We must stop using Fossil fuel emissions as it is causing the ocean to warm which results in mass-bleaching of corals and leads to widespread destruction of our