The Great Barrier Reef

The Great Barrier Reef, lying off the coast of eastern Australia is the only living organic   collective that is visible from Earth’s orbit. The world’s largest coral system is a natural wonder. The Great Barrier Reef was declared a world heritage site in 1981 and added to Australia’s national heritage list in 2007.

The gigantic reef covering an area larger than 300 000 square kilometres is scattered with beautiful islands and idyllic coral cays. The Great Barreir Reef system consists of more than 3000 reefs, some are as big as 10,000 hectares whilest there are also others that are as small as 1 hectare.

Numerious Human activites in the Reef areas has led to increased pollutants causing irrepable damage in some areas of this spectacular creation of nature. Protecting the Reef is the responsibility of the Marine Park Authority. In 2003, the previous Australian Government and Queensland Governments, in partnership with a wide range of industry and community groups, developed the Reef Water Quality Protection Reef Plan as a combined effort to protect the Reef.

The coral

Coral of diferent shapes and sizes make up the various reefs and cays; these form the basis for the great variety of sea and animal life in the Reef. Coral reefs are formed by individual coral polyps, these are tiny live creatures which join together to form colonies. Each polyp lives inside a shell of aragonite, a type of calcium carbonate which is the hard shell we recognise as coral. The polyps join together to create forests of coloured coral in interesting fan, antler, brain and plate shapes.

Ideal coral habitat is shallow warm water where there is a lot of water movement, plenty of light, where the water is salty and low in nutrients. Many different types of corals need different conditions to flourish, some grow extreamly slow taking hundreds of years whilest some grow much faster. The colours of coral are created by algae. Only live coral is coloured. Dead coral is white.  

In the past and even in moredrn times, many ships were destroyed when they slammed on to these coral reefs. These include Captain James Cook’s ship Endeavour. One of the most famous wrecks is that of the HMS Pandora, which foundered in 1791. There are 30 shipwreck sites known in the marine park.   

The habitat

The Great Barrier Reef area is blessed with an abundance of wildlife, including dugong and green turtles, varieties of dolphins and whales, more than 1500 species of fish, 4000 types of mollusc and more than 200 species of bird life.

Tourism

There are more than 2 million tourists visiting The Great Barrier Reef every year, they bring in excess of $AU2 billion in tourism dollars, making tourism a major earner for the north-eastern Australian economy.  There are more than 500 commercial vessels taking tourists through nearly all the Park.

You can travel to The Great Barrier Reef from Sydney either by plane, train, bus or by renting a car.