today less than one hundred meters below sea level. However, more accurate and recorded historical accounts of human contact with the GBR after the first Europeans crossed the Pacific Ocean, establishing land contact with the east coast of Australia. The Queensland coast is believed to have been first sighted around 1522 by a Portuguese expedition led by Cristovao de Mendonca. However, the first documentary evidence of the sighting of the Great Barrier Reef by Europeans was that of the French commander Louis de Bougainville. He discovered an area of reef now known as Bougainville Reef near Cooktown. However, faced with strong offshore waves and food shortages, he directed his ship and crew north towards Asia along the northern coast of New Guinea, missing Australia. This became somewhat of a common pattern among other travelers and explorers, touching the reef but missing the Australian current. It was not until 1770 that the Endeavor under James Cook sailed along the Great Barrier Reef. Most of the trip was done well inshore, probably seeing little of the reef. However, on 11 June, Cook's party learned of this intimately when they struck Endeavor Reef, north of Cape Tribulation, being forced to spend six weeks repairing the ship ashore at the site of modern Cooktown. It was this unexpected and inconvenient situation that Cook and his scientists, botanists Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander and a staff of four illustrators, were able to make very few direct observations of the reef but, following the voyage and crash, this it was the first documented scientific discovery for the international scientific community. It was a great discovery that soon influenced GBF and its future interaction with humans. Corrections were made to the ship, but due to the structure of the GBF, it acted as a natural barrier, making it difficult for Cook and the ship to reach open sea. This forced them to travel north to Lizard Island. Cook and his botanists traveled to the island and climbed to the highest point to find an opening in the reef large enough for the Endeavor to pass through. This passage is known today as Cook's Passage. Over the years 1801 to 1803, scientist and geographer Matthew Flinders undertook the monumental undertaking of surveying the entire Australian coastline and at one point walked on what he called the "vast barrier reef". It was the Finders who mapped out a safe passage by sending small boats to probe the depths. The hydrographer Philip Parker King, commanding the Sirena in 1819 and the Bathurst in 1820, first carried out the methodical task of mapping much of the northern reef accurately and in detail. Over the next two and a half centuries, Europeans began to colonize and commute to the eastern lands of Australia, primarily along the coasts of the present-day provinces of Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria. Today, studies are conducted at a much more careful level, examining the composition of the reef, what species exist, how they are found and interact, whether they are resilient or vulnerable to change. These studies and research conducted by scientists from various fields (botanists, hydrogeographers, environmentalists, oceanographers, marine biologists, etc.) have visited all parts of the academic world in an attempt to understand the unique, ancient yet delicate ecosystems of the GBF: all thanks to the James Cook's team of botanists and their documentation of the spectacular coral reef. Biodiversity The beautiful Great Barrier Reef is home to unique and spectacular species of life. The variety oflife along the vast expanse of the coral reef is immense. The reef's extraordinary biodiversity and interconnectedness of species and habitats make the Great Barrier Reef and surrounding areas one of the most complex natural systems on Earth. Maintaining a healthy and diverse Great Barrier Reef ecosystem is important for it to be able to resist, recover and adapt to impacts and stress. It provides a productive and healthy coral reef environment, essential resources such as fish and shrimp, and supports many industries. It is the largest coral reef ecosystem in the world, spanning 14 degrees of latitudinal range. It includes more than 2,900 separate reefs and deep-water features of the adjacent continental shelf, including canyons, channels, plateaus, and slopes. It consists of 70 “bioregions” (large-scale habitats) including 30 coral reef bioregions and 40 non-coral bioregions (Rizzari, 2014). The GBR has more than 2000 square kilometers of mangroves, with species representing 54% of the world's mangrove diversity. While the GBR has approximately 6,000 square kilometers of seagrass beds, it also includes approximately 1,050 islands ranging from small coral islets to large continental islands. Additionally, a diverse range of animals rely on the reef, including one of the world's largest dugong populations and six of the world's seven sea turtle species. Approximately 1625 species of fish swim among more than 450 species of hard coral (Rizzari, 2014). Lesser-known species such as molluscs, sponges, seaweed, soft corals and marine pens are just some of the many that inhabit the Great Barrier Reef. Visiting the Great Barrier Reef Visiting the entire Great Barrier Reef Marine Park for the year ending December 2014 was approximately 2.19 million visitor days. (GGBRMPA, 2015). This figure includes independent coral viewing activities and scenic flights. The long-term trend of tourism in the Marine Park does not include autonomous coral observation activities and scenic flights as these data have only been collected in recent years. For the year ending December 2014, visits to the Marine Park, excluding these activities, totaled 1.88 million visitor days. Visits vary depending on tourism trends, weather conditions and even global factors. Information on the number of tourists visiting the Marine Park was collected from the register data that tourism operators are required to provide when submitting environmental management cost (EMC) declarations (GBRMPA, 2015). Information provided by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, the chart below shows visits to the entire Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, including full day visits, part day visits and visits by those who are exempt from paying the environmental management fee (EMC). Full-day visits are the best indicator of the general trend of tourism in the Marine Park. Data is displayed by calendar year and does not include coral viewing activities or scenic flights. This graph shows visitor measurement over a 20-year period (Davey, 2016). The Great Barrier Reef Marine Authority highlights factors to understand that the chart above graphically represents the concepts that full day visits include: A day trip of more than three hours is recorded as a full day visit , overnight trips are recorded as multiple full days, for example a two day and one night stay is counted as two full day visits. Daily visits include: If thetrip takes less than three hours, the first day of travel with entry to the Marine Park after 5pm and the last day of travel with departure from the Marine Park before 6am. Exempt visits include passengers who are not required to pay the Environmental Management Charge (EMC), for example: small children traveling for free, passengers familiarizing themselves with the trade for free and/or passengers for whom another operator has already paid EMC that day. Other details about tourists and visitors noted by the GBR are that around 40% of the 1.6 million visitors are from overseas, with the figure being as high as 70% in Cairns. Many are repeat visitors who, according to research, tend to opt for smaller rather than larger boats for subsequent trips. Most foreign tourists who visit the GBR come from the United States, Canada, France, Germany and the United Kingdom. (Australia.Gov.Au, 2016). Technology, combined with a rapid worldwide increase in interest in recreational travel, has transformed reef tourism in recent years.1970s and 1980s. The first large, high-speed catamaran carrying 150 people at over 25 knots – and thus to previously inaccessible coral reefs – was introduced in 1982 (Davey, 2016). Snorkeling equipment, and then scuba gear, began to be used frequently around the same time. As a result, the number of companies involved in the industry has increased dramatically, from fewer than 12 in 1968 to 180 in 1987 and 742 in 1998. Likewise, there has been a huge increase in the number of visitors*. In the early 1980s, this number was estimated at 150,000 visitor days per year (40 times the number of visits in the pre-1950 period). In 1987 there were 450,000 and 10 years later (1997) there were 1.6 million visitor days. In financial terms, gross tourism output in 1987 was measured at around $200 million; by 1996, this figure had risen to approximately $650 million, with the total value of reef tourism now calculated at over $1 billion (1999) (Davey, 2016). Growth forecasts for the next decade range from 5 to 10%. On the fishing side, the Queensland Government-controlled Great Barrier Reef fishing industry is worth A$1 billion a year. It employs around 2,000 people and fishing on the Great Barrier Reef is done commercially, recreationally and as a traditional means of feeding one's family (Davey, 2016).Environmental threatsClimate change, pollution, crown-of-thorns starfish and fishing are activities that are the main threats to the health of this coral reef system. Other threats include shipping accidents, oil spills and tropical cyclones. Skeletal band erosion, a disease of bony corals caused by the protozoan Halofolliculina corallasia, affects 31 coral species. According to a 2012 study by the National Academy of Science, since 1985, the Great Barrier Reef has lost more than half of its corals, and two-thirds of the loss has occurred since 1998 due to the factors listed above (National Geographic Partners LLC, 2016). Thanks to its extreme biodiversity, the Great Barrier Reef is a popular tourist destination and around two million people visit it every year. Scuba diving and excursions on small boats and planes are the most popular activities on the reef. Because it is a fragile habitat, Great Barrier Reef tourism is highly managed and sometimes operated as ecotourism. All ships, aircraft and others wishing to access the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park must have a permit. Despite theseprotective measures, however, the health of the Great Barrier Reef is still threatened due to climate change, pollution, fishing and invasive species. Climate change and rising sea temperatures are considered the biggest threat to coral reefs because coral is a fragile species that needs water to be between 25°C and 29°C (77°F at 84°F) to survive (AVAAZ, 2014). Coral bleaching has recently occurred due to higher temperatures. Coral Bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef As just stated above, high sea temperatures are the primary cause of mass coral bleaching events. Bleaching is a stress response of corals, during which they expel their zooxanthellae under unfavorable conditions, giving rise to the typical white coloration observed. Aside from temperature, other stressors such as tropical cyclones, freshwater inflows, and anthropogenic pollution can also induce bleaching, but to a much lesser extent and generally not on large spatial scales. Bleaching has been observed on the Great Barrier Reef since 1982, with severe bleaching events occurring in the summers of 1998, 2002 and 2006. Major bleaching events on coral reefs in the Southern Hemisphere (Pacific and Indian Oceans) tend to occur in February-April, with a delay of up to a month in the response to coral bleaching following thermal stress. Mortality appears to increase with the intensity of the bleaching event, which is determined by how much and for how long temperatures remain above average summer maximum temperatures. Bleaching events in benthic coral communities (deeper than 20 meters or 66 feet) in the Great Barrier Reef are not as well documented as those at shallower depths, but recent research has shown that benthic communities are equally negatively impacted by increase in ocean temperatures (Hopley, 2016). Five species of large benthic corals from the Great Barrier Reef have been found bleached at elevated temperatures, stating that benthic corals are vulnerable to thermal stress. What's being done: The 2050 Barrier Reef Long-Term Sustainability Plan Some actions have already been taken over the years to help prevent damage inflicted on the Great Barrier Reef. Royal Commissions banned oil drilling on the Great Barrier Reef, in 1975 the Australian government created the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and prohibited various activities. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park does not include the entire Great Barrier Reef Province. The park is managed, in partnership with the Queensland Government, through the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority to ensure it is used sustainably. A combination of zoning, management plans, permits, education, and incentives (such as ecotourism certification) are employed in the effort to conserve the reef. In 1999, the Australian Parliament passed the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, which improved the functioning of national environmental legislation by providing guidance on regional biodiversity conservation priorities. The marine bioregional planning process arose from the implementation of this law. This process preserves marine biodiversity by considering the entire ecosystem in which a species is found and how different species interact in the marine environment. With the clear understanding and recognition that the Great Barrier Reef is still under attack in the face of imminent environmental threats, both.

Topic > today less than one hundred meters below sea level. However, more accurate and recorded historical accounts of human contact with the GBR after the first Europeans crossed the Pacific Ocean, establishing land contact with the east coast of Australia. The Queensland coast is believed to have been first sighted around 1522 by a Portuguese expedition led by Cristovao de Mendonca. However, the first documentary evidence of the sighting of the Great Barrier Reef by Europeans was that of the French commander Louis de Bougainville. He discovered an area of reef now known as Bougainville Reef near Cooktown. However, faced with strong offshore waves and food shortages, he directed his ship and crew north towards Asia along the northern coast of New Guinea, missing Australia. This became somewhat of a common pattern among other travelers and explorers, touching the reef but missing the Australian current. It was not until 1770 that the Endeavor under James Cook sailed along the Great Barrier Reef. Most of the trip was done well inshore, probably seeing little of the reef. However, on 11 June, Cook's party learned of this intimately when they struck Endeavor Reef, north of Cape Tribulation, being forced to spend six weeks repairing the ship ashore at the site of modern Cooktown. It was this unexpected and inconvenient situation that Cook and his scientists, botanists Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander and a staff of four illustrators, were able to make very few direct observations of the reef but, following the voyage and crash, this it was the first documented scientific discovery for the international scientific community. It was a great discovery that soon influenced GBF and its future interaction with humans. Corrections were made to the ship, but due to the structure of the GBF, it acted as a natural barrier, making it difficult for Cook and the ship to reach open sea. This forced them to travel north to Lizard Island. Cook and his botanists traveled to the island and climbed to the highest point to find an opening in the reef large enough for the Endeavor to pass through. This passage is known today as Cook's Passage. Over the years 1801 to 1803, scientist and geographer Matthew Flinders undertook the monumental undertaking of surveying the entire Australian coastline and at one point walked on what he called the "vast barrier reef". It was the Finders who mapped out a safe passage by sending small boats to probe the depths. The hydrographer Philip Parker King, commanding the Sirena in 1819 and the Bathurst in 1820, first carried out the methodical task of mapping much of the northern reef accurately and in detail. Over the next two and a half centuries, Europeans began to colonize and commute to the eastern lands of Australia, primarily along the coasts of the present-day provinces of Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria. Today, studies are conducted at a much more careful level, examining the composition of the reef, what species exist, how they are found and interact, whether they are resilient or vulnerable to change. These studies and research conducted by scientists from various fields (botanists, hydrogeographers, environmentalists, oceanographers, marine biologists, etc.) have visited all parts of the academic world in an attempt to understand the unique, ancient yet delicate ecosystems of the GBF: all thanks to the James Cook's team of botanists and their documentation of the spectacular coral reef. Biodiversity The beautiful Great Barrier Reef is home to unique and spectacular species of life. The variety oflife along the vast expanse of the coral reef is immense. The reef's extraordinary biodiversity and interconnectedness of species and habitats make the Great Barrier Reef and surrounding areas one of the most complex natural systems on Earth. Maintaining a healthy and diverse Great Barrier Reef ecosystem is important for it to be able to resist, recover and adapt to impacts and stress. It provides a productive and healthy coral reef environment, essential resources such as fish and shrimp, and supports many industries. It is the largest coral reef ecosystem in the world, spanning 14 degrees of latitudinal range. It includes more than 2,900 separate reefs and deep-water features of the adjacent continental shelf, including canyons, channels, plateaus, and slopes. It consists of 70 “bioregions” (large-scale habitats) including 30 coral reef bioregions and 40 non-coral bioregions (Rizzari, 2014). The GBR has more than 2000 square kilometers of mangroves, with species representing 54% of the world's mangrove diversity. While the GBR has approximately 6,000 square kilometers of seagrass beds, it also includes approximately 1,050 islands ranging from small coral islets to large continental islands. Additionally, a diverse range of animals rely on the reef, including one of the world's largest dugong populations and six of the world's seven sea turtle species. Approximately 1625 species of fish swim among more than 450 species of hard coral (Rizzari, 2014). Lesser-known species such as molluscs, sponges, seaweed, soft corals and marine pens are just some of the many that inhabit the Great Barrier Reef. Visiting the Great Barrier Reef Visiting the entire Great Barrier Reef Marine Park for the year ending December 2014 was approximately 2.19 million visitor days. (GGBRMPA, 2015). This figure includes independent coral viewing activities and scenic flights. The long-term trend of tourism in the Marine Park does not include autonomous coral observation activities and scenic flights as these data have only been collected in recent years. For the year ending December 2014, visits to the Marine Park, excluding these activities, totaled 1.88 million visitor days. Visits vary depending on tourism trends, weather conditions and even global factors. Information on the number of tourists visiting the Marine Park was collected from the register data that tourism operators are required to provide when submitting environmental management cost (EMC) declarations (GBRMPA, 2015). Information provided by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, the chart below shows visits to the entire Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, including full day visits, part day visits and visits by those who are exempt from paying the environmental management fee (EMC). Full-day visits are the best indicator of the general trend of tourism in the Marine Park. Data is displayed by calendar year and does not include coral viewing activities or scenic flights. This graph shows visitor measurement over a 20-year period (Davey, 2016). The Great Barrier Reef Marine Authority highlights factors to understand that the chart above graphically represents the concepts that full day visits include: A day trip of more than three hours is recorded as a full day visit , overnight trips are recorded as multiple full days, for example a two day and one night stay is counted as two full day visits. Daily visits include: If thetrip takes less than three hours, the first day of travel with entry to the Marine Park after 5pm and the last day of travel with departure from the Marine Park before 6am. Exempt visits include passengers who are not required to pay the Environmental Management Charge (EMC), for example: small children traveling for free, passengers familiarizing themselves with the trade for free and/or passengers for whom another operator has already paid EMC that day. Other details about tourists and visitors noted by the GBR are that around 40% of the 1.6 million visitors are from overseas, with the figure being as high as 70% in Cairns. Many are repeat visitors who, according to research, tend to opt for smaller rather than larger boats for subsequent trips. Most foreign tourists who visit the GBR come from the United States, Canada, France, Germany and the United Kingdom. (Australia.Gov.Au, 2016). Technology, combined with a rapid worldwide increase in interest in recreational travel, has transformed reef tourism in recent years.1970s and 1980s. The first large, high-speed catamaran carrying 150 people at over 25 knots – and thus to previously inaccessible coral reefs – was introduced in 1982 (Davey, 2016). Snorkeling equipment, and then scuba gear, began to be used frequently around the same time. As a result, the number of companies involved in the industry has increased dramatically, from fewer than 12 in 1968 to 180 in 1987 and 742 in 1998. Likewise, there has been a huge increase in the number of visitors*. In the early 1980s, this number was estimated at 150,000 visitor days per year (40 times the number of visits in the pre-1950 period). In 1987 there were 450,000 and 10 years later (1997) there were 1.6 million visitor days. In financial terms, gross tourism output in 1987 was measured at around $200 million; by 1996, this figure had risen to approximately $650 million, with the total value of reef tourism now calculated at over $1 billion (1999) (Davey, 2016). Growth forecasts for the next decade range from 5 to 10%. On the fishing side, the Queensland Government-controlled Great Barrier Reef fishing industry is worth A$1 billion a year. It employs around 2,000 people and fishing on the Great Barrier Reef is done commercially, recreationally and as a traditional means of feeding one's family (Davey, 2016).Environmental threatsClimate change, pollution, crown-of-thorns starfish and fishing are activities that are the main threats to the health of this coral reef system. Other threats include shipping accidents, oil spills and tropical cyclones. Skeletal band erosion, a disease of bony corals caused by the protozoan Halofolliculina corallasia, affects 31 coral species. According to a 2012 study by the National Academy of Science, since 1985, the Great Barrier Reef has lost more than half of its corals, and two-thirds of the loss has occurred since 1998 due to the factors listed above (National Geographic Partners LLC, 2016). Thanks to its extreme biodiversity, the Great Barrier Reef is a popular tourist destination and around two million people visit it every year. Scuba diving and excursions on small boats and planes are the most popular activities on the reef. Because it is a fragile habitat, Great Barrier Reef tourism is highly managed and sometimes operated as ecotourism. All ships, aircraft and others wishing to access the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park must have a permit. Despite theseprotective measures, however, the health of the Great Barrier Reef is still threatened due to climate change, pollution, fishing and invasive species. Climate change and rising sea temperatures are considered the biggest threat to coral reefs because coral is a fragile species that needs water to be between 25°C and 29°C (77°F at 84°F) to survive (AVAAZ, 2014). Coral bleaching has recently occurred due to higher temperatures. Coral Bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef As just stated above, high sea temperatures are the primary cause of mass coral bleaching events. Bleaching is a stress response of corals, during which they expel their zooxanthellae under unfavorable conditions, giving rise to the typical white coloration observed. Aside from temperature, other stressors such as tropical cyclones, freshwater inflows, and anthropogenic pollution can also induce bleaching, but to a much lesser extent and generally not on large spatial scales. Bleaching has been observed on the Great Barrier Reef since 1982, with severe bleaching events occurring in the summers of 1998, 2002 and 2006. Major bleaching events on coral reefs in the Southern Hemisphere (Pacific and Indian Oceans) tend to occur in February-April, with a delay of up to a month in the response to coral bleaching following thermal stress. Mortality appears to increase with the intensity of the bleaching event, which is determined by how much and for how long temperatures remain above average summer maximum temperatures. Bleaching events in benthic coral communities (deeper than 20 meters or 66 feet) in the Great Barrier Reef are not as well documented as those at shallower depths, but recent research has shown that benthic communities are equally negatively impacted by increase in ocean temperatures (Hopley, 2016). Five species of large benthic corals from the Great Barrier Reef have been found bleached at elevated temperatures, stating that benthic corals are vulnerable to thermal stress. What's being done: The 2050 Barrier Reef Long-Term Sustainability Plan Some actions have already been taken over the years to help prevent damage inflicted on the Great Barrier Reef. Royal Commissions banned oil drilling on the Great Barrier Reef, in 1975 the Australian government created the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and prohibited various activities. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park does not include the entire Great Barrier Reef Province. The park is managed, in partnership with the Queensland Government, through the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority to ensure it is used sustainably. A combination of zoning, management plans, permits, education, and incentives (such as ecotourism certification) are employed in the effort to conserve the reef. In 1999, the Australian Parliament passed the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, which improved the functioning of national environmental legislation by providing guidance on regional biodiversity conservation priorities. The marine bioregional planning process arose from the implementation of this law. This process preserves marine biodiversity by considering the entire ecosystem in which a species is found and how different species interact in the marine environment. With the clear understanding and recognition that the Great Barrier Reef is still under attack in the face of imminent environmental threats, both.