Tourism impacts – What could we do?
The Great Barrier Reef is located off the coast of QLD, north-east Australia. It’s a reef that is home to
four hundred types of coral, one thousand and five hundred species of fish and four thousand types
of mollusc. The reef is located in the Coral Sea, off the coast of South Queensland, Australia,
separated from the coast by a channel approximately one hundred and sixty kilometres wide in
places and over thirty-five metres deep.
The Great Barrier Reef has been known to be under the ownership of the Indigenous community for
over sixty thousand years, and is a crucial part of local Aboriginal cultures and spirituality. The reef is
a large hot spot in the tourism industry, especially within the Whitsunday Islands and Cairns regions.
Tourism is a very important economic activity for the region, generating over three billion dollars
each year.
Due to its vast biodiversity, warm clear waters and accessibility from the liveaboards, the reef is a
very popular tourist destination, especially for ocean divers. Tourism on the Great Barrier Reef is
dense in Cairns and The Whitsundays. These areas make up seven and a half percent of the park's
area. As the largest tourist activity hotspot in the region, it was estimated in two thousand and that
tourism generated over four billion dollars annually, and the two thousand and five increased it to
five billion. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority in March two thousand and thirteen stated
that the reef's two thousand kilometres of coastline attracts tourism generating six point four billion
annually and an employment rate of more than sixty four thousand people.
Approximately two million people visit the Great Barrier Reef each year. Although most of these
visits are related to professional coordination with the Marine Tourism Industry, there is a concern
among the general public that tourism is harmful to the Great Barrier Reef. Glass-bottomed boats
and along with underwater activities are big in terms of popularity, as are helicopter flights. The
most popular tourist activities on the Great Barrier Reef are snorkelling and diving, which pontoons
are often used for. The outer part of the Great Barrier Reef is prominent for such activities due to
water quality.
A large mass of the reef is protected by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, which their dedication is
set towards limiting the impact of tourism pollution impacts on the reef. Other environmental
impacts on the reef and its ecosystem diversity include global warming, mass coral bleaching,
dumping of dredging sludge and cyclic population outbreaks of the crown-of-thorns starfish. In a
research published in October two thousand and twelve by the National Academy of Sciences, over
half the reefs coral has died since nineteen eighty five, along with the outcomes of a two-thousand
and twenty bleaching event covering the whole of the reef.
The Australian Government is planning to invest two hundred million dollars over five years into the
ecological balance of the Reef. Which includes operations of the Reef Water Quality Protection Plan.
Furthermore, the new forty million dollar Reef Trust will fund water quality improvements, habitat
restoration and species recovery. Additionally, the Queensland Government has inputted an extra
hundred million over five years towards water quality improvements. Research businesses will have
to adapt to altered environmental practices along with primary production and fishing industries.
The plan is going to be undertaken by a strong investment procedure, coordinating public and
personal investment to maximise positive environmental potential for the biologically diverse wellbeing of the Great Barrier Reef.