Great Barrier Reef is better than expected: Ley

The Great Barrier Reef is not dead, is not dying and isn’t even on life support, Environment Minister Sussan Ley declares.

Minister of the Environment Sussan Ley snorkelling over the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Cairns.

The Great Barrier Reef is not dead, is not dying and is not even on life support, federal Environment Minister Sussan Ley has declared after her first official visit to the World Heritage-listed site.

Returning from a snorkelling trip to Moore and Flynn reefs offshore from Cairns, Ms Ley was happy yesterday to broadcast the message that tourism operators desperately want heard around the world.

“Today we saw coral that was struggling but we also saw coral that was coming back, that was growing, that was vibrant,” Ms Ley said.

“We saw amazing wildlife, fish, turtles, clams. We saw a reef teeming with life.

“It gives me heart and hope that the future of this magnificent part of the world is a good one.”

Ms Ley said not everything was perfect and there had been areas that were struggling from the ­impact of cyclones.

However, she told The Aus­tralian conditions were better than she had expected.

“I was expecting to see dead areas with a few patches of life,” Ms Ley said.

“I saw the exact ­opposite to that.”

Ms Ley has spent three days touring the coastal area around Cairns speaking to farmers, tourism bodies and reef scientists.

She has backed the concerns of all sides and attempted to avoid some of the more bitter areas of dispute.

These include new water quality regulations for Queensland farmers, calls for better quality ­assurance for reef science and the outsourcing of reef program delivery to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation by the Turnbull ­government.

The Queensland government has introduced new water quality laws to parliament that will more closely monitor and supervise ­fertiliser use and nutrient run-off in Great Barrier Reef catchments.

Marine scientist Peter Ridd has begun a speaking tour in Queensland calling for a new body to check the quality of reef research.

Accompanying Ms Ley on the visit this week has been Great Barrier Reef Foundation managing director Anna Marsden.

The GBR Foundation has been given $444 million by the federal government and is expected to raise matching funds from private donors.

The federal opposition had said it would have withdrawn the funding if it won the federal election.

Ms Ley said the common ground across all issues was the need for greater co-operation.

“The GBR Foundation is about everyone talking to everyone”, she said.

With quality assurance, Ms Ley said, she was comfortable with the science provided by the Australian Institute of Marine Science.

“Tourism operators are saying they want somewhere to go to say that is the truth,” she said.

“My answer is they can go to AIMS.”

Ms Ley said the concerns of farmers needed to be carefully managed.

“Farmers don’t want an unhealthy reef,” she said.

“And the experience from the Murray-Darling Basin is if you don’t bring people with you, it can blow up in your face.”

Ms Ley was also accompanied on the visit by the government’s reef and recycling envoy and local member, Warren Entsch.

He said it was important Ms Ley had not taken the word of scientists or tourism operators but had “put on the gear and gone under the water to see for herself”.

Mr Entsch said it was not a matter of trying to sugarcoat everything.

In relation to bleaching and ­climate change, he said it was not a new phenomenon: “It has been happening for millennia.”

“There have been a couple of consecutive events here that have proved to be challenging,” Mr Entsch said.

“What we now know is more about the impacts and how we need to manage those into the ­future.

“We are not sitting on our hands saying too bad, too sad.

“The work that is being done accelerates the recovery from what it may well have been in the past.”