Australia admits to neglecting Great Barrier Reef for decades

The Australian Government has admitted that the Great Barrier Reef has been neglected for decades, after a study showed it has lost more than half its coral cover in the past 27 years.

Australia's environment minister Tony Burke said research by scientists from the Australian Institute of Marine Science and the University of Wollongong should be setting off alarm bells across the country. "I reckon the report would have sent shock waves through a whole lot of households," he said.

"We've all heard about damage to the reef over the years, but that 50% figure, I think, rang a warning bell loud and clear for many people," The Telegraph quoted Burke, as saying.

According to the report, the study said coral cover on the heritage-listed reef, the world’s largest, could halve again by 2022 if trends continued. Intense tropical cyclones, 34 in total since 1985, were responsible for much of the damage, accounting for 48%, with outbreaks of the coral-feeding crown-of-thorns starfish linked to 42%, the report said

Burke said the current government was addressing some of the issues raised, but "there's no doubt that there's been a level of neglect for decades which, if it had been dealt with otherwise, we'd be in a much better situation now".

He said tackling the problem of the large, poisonous and spiny crown-of-thorns starfish, which feast on coral polyps and can devastate reef cover, was under way. "They have divers go down and one at a time, into the crown-of-thorns starfish, they inject a protein called sodium bisulphate and that then kills them," he said.

"It's painstaking, you have to go through it one at a time, but that has been the most effective way we've ever had of being able to kill crown-of-thorns in very large numbers," added Burke.

The study said improving water quality was key to controlling starfish outbreaks, with increased agricultural run-off such as fertiliser along the reef coast causing algal blooms that starfish larvae feed on.