The footage, shot on 17 March at the outer reefs off Port Douglas, shows the silent and high-speed destruction of one of the world's most beautiful and fragile ecosystems from below the water line and shot for the first time in close range UAV footage from above.
“I’ve seen previous bleaching on the Reef but nothing could have prepared me to see the reality of the destruction up close,” said Alix Foster Vander Elst, a campaigner at Greenpeace Australia Pacific.
“The world needs to know what is happening to the largest living organism in the world. People need to know that while the Great Barrier Reef dies right in front of our eyes Australia’s government continues to funnel money into new coal mines.”
The footage shows vast areas of coral in the late stages of bleaching or death with UAV footage capturing the distressed coral forests from above.
“What is most heartbreaking about this footage is that it shows a lot of the coral that managed to survive last year is now totally bleached and on its way to dying,” Foster Vander Elst said.
“Almost all of the coral we saw was dead or bleached.”
In 2015, UNESCO placed the Great Barrier Reef on its watchlist due to concerns about the Australian Government’s management of the World Heritage Area and this week a new report, Boom and Bust 2017: Tracking the Global Coal Plant Pipeline, showed a 62 per cent drop in new construction on coal plants as well as an increase in the retirement of existing plants[2].
However, despite two sequential years of coral bleaching on the Reef and the declining coal industry the Australian government is considering giving AU$1 billion (US$760 million) of taxpayers’ money to the biggest coal mine ever built in the country.
“If it gets built, the Carmichael mega-mine will be a climate bomb that endangers the Reef and mocks Australia’s commitments under the Paris climate agreement,” Foster Vander Elst said.
“The government should make a commitment to the Reef, and to the 67,000 people who rely on the Reef for their jobs, that no taxpayer money will be used to dig up the Galilee Basin.”
Coral bleaching occurs when the surrounding water is too warm, causing the corals to expel the algae (zooxanthellae) living in their tissues.
This makes the coral take on a completely white appearance. If water temperatures don’t return to normal within six to eight weeks of the bleaching, the coral dies. In 2016, 93 per cent of the corals of the Great Barrier Reef bleached and 22 per cent of the entire Reef died [1].
Notes to editors:
Photo and video can be accessed here: http://media.greenpeace.org/shoot/27MZIFJJD68E1
[1] Death rate of the entire reef as of June 2016,according to the Australian Institute of Marine Science
[2] http://www.greenpeace.org/india/Global/india/docs/BoomAndBust_2017_EMBARGO.pdf
Media contacts:
Simon Black, Greenpeace Senior Media, Campaigner, Greenpeace Australia Pacific, mob: 0418 219 086, email: simon.black@greenpeace.org
Greenpeace International Press Desk, pressdesk.int@greenpeace.org, phone: +31 (0) 20 718 2470 (available 24 hours)