Great Barrier Reef Australia Dead: What Next?

The Great Barrier Reef Australia is one of the natural wonders to behold Down Under. However, scientists’ worst fears has come true as they pronounced it dead this 2016.

The Great Barrier Reef is home to a variety of marine life. Indeed, its environment makes it suitable for damselfish and coral fish to live and breed. However, scientists recently grew concerned about the effects of rapid temperature increase. Hence their proposal to relocate these species in an attempt to preserve them.

However, were their efforts too late? As it turns out, the Great Barrier Reef Australia could already be dead at the tender age of 25 million years. An obituary posted online by Rowan Jacobsen deemed it is. An excerpt from the post published by Outside Magazine reads as follows.

“…the reef was rarely out of the spotlight. A beacon for explorers, scientists, artists, and tourists, it became Australia’s crown jewel. Yet that didn’t stop the Queensland government from attempting to lease nearly the entire reef to oil and mining companies in the 1960s—a move that gave birth to Australia’s first conservation movement and a decade-long ‘Save the Reef’ campaign that culminated in the 1975 creation of Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, which restricted fishing, shipping, and development in the reef and seemed to ensure its survival,” Jacobsen wrote.

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The Great Barrier Reef is on its death bed and we are the murderers. Fight to save it or at least try to understand how shameful it would be to let it die. I am on my way to Cairns, once the gateway to the reef, and people tell me all the dive sites are bleached to a heartbrakingly irreversible level. If this generation doesn't do something, the natural wonders of our world will parish one by one. #fightforthereef #greatbarrierreef #Australia #Sydney #bondi

A post shared by The Triple Goddess 🌘🌑🌒 (@the_triple_goddess_nz) on Oct 15, 2016 at 7:15pm PDT

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The Great Barrier Reef certainly draws in hordes of tourists owing to its majestic natural beauty. However, that same attention possibly lent to its demise as well. Their presence adds to increased carbon emission in the area. Thus, its hastening its deterioration.

IS THERE STILL HOPE FOR THE GREAT BARRIER REEF AUSTRALIA?

Then again, Oliver Milman of The Guardian opposed Jacobsen’s obituary as premature. For Milman, the reef is not yet dead. However, it is under extreme stress owing to the same factors noted by the Jacobsen. The publication also cited the confidence of coral reef expert Kim Cobb who said reefs would still be around by 2050. Nonetheless, the obituary could be the wake-up call needed to raise awareness and inspire action to preserve the Great Barrier Reef Australia.

Climate change is REAL. It IS happening as we speak. We are all indigenous to this earth & we NEED to take care of it. #GreatBarrierReef pic.twitter.com/oXmFSh2tO8

— Marina Khalili (@MarinaKhalili) October 14, 2016

Online Source: Ausssie Network News.