Threat to tourism as new modelling predicts 56 per cent coral decline

Whitsunday tourism operators say they’re at the “mercy of political leaders” as scientists warn of a more than 50 per cent decline in the Great Barrier Reef by 2040.

The Great Barrier Reef faces catastrophic coral loss by the end of the century, unless global warming stays below two degrees, new research reveals. Picture: Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority

A Whitsunday charter owner has warned tourism operators are “at the mercy of political leaders” as new modelling revealed more than half of the Great Barrier Reef could disappear by 2040 under current global emission pathways.

The University of Queensland study simulated the life cycle of 3806 individual reefs along Australia’s north-east and forecast a 56 per cent decline in mean coral cover in 15 years.

Dr Yves-Marie Bozec said the team at UQ used oceanographic models, satellite imagery and global climate models to predict future conditions of the reef, and the results weren’t good.

Lindsay Simpson and Grant Lewis from Whitsunday Sailing said reef decline posed a threat to tourism operators.

“We have a very small window of opportunity here, and retarding this process will likely have irreversible impacts,” she said.

Writer and tourism operator Lindsay Simpson, who has been running her Whitsunday Sailing charter with her husband for 10 years after a decade on Magnetic Island, said she’d seen the reef’s decline in real time.

“Considering when we started our business there was no bleaching. Now some of the reefs we used to take people to in Magnetic Island have gone,” she said.

While 90 to 95 per cent of her clientele is reliant on the lure of the reef, she feared it was only the calm before the storm

“We’re still taking people out, they’re still having a good experience and they’re still enjoying seeing the fish and seeing the coral but I do think we’re being very complacent just waiting for things to get better,” she said.

“Us tourism operators are basically at the mercy of political leaders to ensure the future is right for our grandchildren that they will see turtles and that they will see a healthy reef.”

It comes as Opposition Leader Sussan Ley confirmed on Thursday the Liberals would follow their Nationals colleagues in scrapping Australia’s target of carbon neutrality by 2050.

Joining the campaign against net zero was Dawson Nationals MP Andrew Willcox, who denied his party’s stance was abandoning climate action.

He said it was a “responsible” approach to reducing emissions by supporting nuclear and hydro power, as well as backing coal and gas to “stabilise the grid and lower costs”.

Andrew Willcox joined his Nationals colleagues in abandoning the net zero target after it was adopted by Scott Morrison in 2021. Picture: NewsWire/Martin Ollman

“It means delivering real, practical environmental outcomes without destroying jobs, tourism businesses or family budgets in the process,” he said.

“Instead of forcing unaffordable targets that drive industries offshore, our approach invests directly in the things that actually protect the reef: reducing sediment runoff through soil carbon programs, restoring mangroves and waterways, and funding local conservation projects that strengthen catchments and improve water quality.”

Dr Bozec called the move by the Coalition as “depressing” and “at odds with all the warnings that science is providing about recent and future impacts of global warming”.

“We project important coral declines on the GBR in the next few decades, even if stringent climate policies were already in place. A strong mitigation of carbon emissions may benefit corals only by mid-century, when the rate of warming starts slowing down (slow enough so that coral adaptation can keep up).

“So we have a very small window of opportunity here, and retarding this process will likely have irreversible impacts.”

Originally published as Threat to tourism as new modelling predicts 56 per cent coral decline