Committing to our Coral: Understanding the needs of the Great Barrier Reef
Isobel Kavanagh’s reflection on facing her fears, exploring the ocean, and navigating personal and environmental resilience as she ventures into the Great Barrier Reef
Isobel Kavanagh, age 23
I’m Isobel, a final year student at the University of Surrey, UK, where I study English Literature and Creative Writing. I am a keen journalist, especially using my voice and skills to raise awareness of climate action and the important role of stewardship we hold for our beautiful oceans. While spending a year in Australia as part of my degree, I visited the Great Barrier Reef, where I got to experience the beautiful diverse marine life that calls the coral home, but also the risks posed by tourism and coral bleaching. I hope to continue advocating for cleaner, healthier oceans, and learning to be a persuasive and creative writer.
In September last year, I had the privilege of visiting the Great Barrier Reef while on a trip to Cairns, Australia. I was spending the year in New South Wales, and the reef felt like an unmissable wonder, on many people’s bucket lists. We set sail bright and early on one of a dozen tours leaving Cairns’ Wharf, heading first to Hastings Reef - a busy, horse-shoe shaped ecosystem about an hour’s boat ride from shore. As we approached, we were briefed in snorkeling and fitted for flippers, taught to enter the water with a neat, single step as though the choppy water was solid ground. Meanwhile, my heart began to hammer. It took everything in me not to cry.
“From a young age, I have had an extreme fear of open water. ”
All aspects of it, from the extensive list of dark-dwelling creatures lurking beneath, to tsunamis, to the sheer size of the ocean has made me uncomfortable even in the safest of seas, and sadly, in the most beautiful ones too. But my year down under was a time for transformation, and I was not one to succumb to fear. I purposely chose the seaside city of Wollongong to be exposed to wild shores and waves, but while spending time at the beach had helped, it was a far cry from jumping off a boat into the depths of the Pacific Ocean. Aboard the boat were marine biologists, underwater photographers, seasoned scuba divers and shark enthusiasts, not to mention my irritatingly unafraid friends who just could not comprehend it. I felt completely stupid, and unsure what to do.
It was the gravity of this personal challenge, however, that made my time on the reef that much more special. I took a deep breath, got into the water, and looked down. But brevity turned to minutes, which turned ultimately into two hours.
“There was just too much magic to be frightened. The fish were mesmerising, with neon-bright scales and patterns that would put our top fashion designers to shame. The water was like clear crystal and dappled its light upon the coral, which grooved and flowered in shades of green, purple, yellow, and pink. ”
The divers and instructors referred to some of the bigger fish by name and were regular visitors to their home. As though dropping by for a catch up at a friend’s house. The experience was nothing short of stunning.
The importance of understanding what makes up a reef, and how it lives, is paramount. And the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) is raising awareness with their annual report on their long-term monitoring of the Great Barrier Reef. The report provides detailed insights into the health of the coral and the ecosystems at large. In August this year, the AIMS team voiced their positions on the 2023 report in The Conversation, writing that it ‘paints a complex picture’.
So what factors are affecting the health of the reef, according to AIMS? There is a common misconception about what corals actually are. They are in fact living things! They are an animal, or rather thousands of tiny animals called polyps that make up what we recognise as coral. Hard coral is surveyed extensively because of its important role in the building of the reef through complex and firm patterns of foundation and growth. Naturally, on a tour of nearly a hundred, we were guaranteed a handful of visitors who, despite the many warnings and scoldings of the tour crew, continued to prod the coral and stand on it in their plastic flippers because they were too lazy to keep swimming. Touching coral can cause it serious harm, or even kill it, depriving the fish that call it home of all the goodness it gives them. This happens because the toxins we collect on our skin going out and about are unknown and destructive on the coral’s immune system. It is not designed to be able to fight human damage. So, like you would a Van Gogh in a gallery, you can look but should never touch.
AIMS have been monitoring the GBR for over 37 years, and have extensive records of the health status of coral in the Northern, Central and Southern parts of the Reef. In the Northern reefs, there remains a significant problem with bleaching. This is when the coral emits algae, turning it white, and while it is not dead, it fails to function as it usually would due to being under more stress than usual. This occurs when the water is too warm. Fortunately, the central and southern reefs were less affected by bleaching, but the status ebbs and flows. Central reefs had an alarmingly low amount of coral cover in 2012, but fortunately recovered somewhat in the decade that followed, albeit with a few dips, back to around 30% cover in 2022. In 2023, only five of the surveyed Central Reefs had ‘substantial statistical evidence for decline’ (AIMS 2023).
Bleaching is caused when the water is too warm, which is of course, occurring more frequently than we’d like due to climate change. In 2022, there was a mass coral bleaching event due to an extreme marine heatwave, and the scientists are concerned this will start occurring more and more. Concluding their report, AIMS noted that ‘enabling coral reefs to survive these stressful conditions requires a combination of a reduction in global greenhouse emissions to stabilise temperatures, best practice management of local pressures, and the development of interventions to help reefs adapt to and recover from the effects of climate change’ (AIMS 2023). Other stressors to the reefs are crown-of-thorns starfish, who like to eat the coral, and cyclones that have rocked the equilibrium of health and recovery in recent years - once again, we can only attribute this to climate change.
“Nonetheless, coral has clearly proven resilient - despite being eaten by starfish and ruffled by cyclones it can recover if given reprieve. But if temperatures only rise, and this reprieve doesn’t yield, we face a greater risk of losing more coral reefs than ever before. ”
To end on an encouraging note, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese seems to care. According to The Guardian’s report in June of this year, UNESCO ‘praises’ the current government. Director General of UNESCO, Audrey Azoulay recognises the GBR as a ‘fragile jewel of world heritage’, and is supporting the government's $160m plan to reduce issues of overfishing on the reef. Finally, while suggesting the reef should not host visitors would make me a hypocrite, we are only deserving of the treat to see it if we treat it with the care it deserves. I have a personal memory, a magical one, of my time on the reef. But you don’t have to have been to the Great Barrier Reef to be able to imagine what repeated destruction to your home might be like. To find the walls around you weakening, cracks in the ceiling, and not enough food to go around. This is essentially what the fish that call the reef home are going through as they are continually rocked by climate change. So, wherever you are in the world, stand behind the Australian efforts, and raise the reef in conversation. And whatever you do, if you do get to do it, keep your fingers and your flippers to yourself!