Latest forecasts from the NOAA indicate that the Great Barrier Reef may narrowly escape what would have been its fourth mass bleaching event in six years. But while this might feel like a chance to pause and enjoy a moment’s relief, it is a mere blip in the trajectory that is inevitable ecological disaster.
The health of the Great Barrier Reef is now in critical status. And with current efforts to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees far from sufficient, suffice it to say, things are not looking so great for the Great Barrier Reef.
In a desperate effort to save the Great Barrier Reef from such grim predictions, reef managers have thrown their efforts into restoration and adaptation measures — i.e. plan B. For example, the Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program is a research and development program which aims to ‘determine the feasibility of intervening at scale on the Great Barrier Reef to help it adapt to, and recover from, the effects of climate change’. From geoengineering cooler waters to developing heat-tolerant corals, it is the most comprehensive reef intervention program in the world.
However, while several feasible and effective reef interventions exist, are they really the best option we have to save the Great Barrier Reef? Restoration efforts are designed to help guide the Reef through the next few decades of locked-in warming but, they will only be effective if we combine them with a serious reduction in global emissions. And I am certain that many, if not all, reef restoration practitioners would agree.
'If reef managers could allocate just a fraction of the attention, funds and resources currently going into restoration efforts towards designing strategies and interventions that target human behaviour, then we may actually have a chance at saving the Reef.'
To illustrate, imagine filling a bathtub (the planet) at a rate much faster than the rate at which the water (greenhouse gas emissions) drains out. Leave the tap running for long enough and the bathtub overflows. You can mop the floor or try to slow the water down, but it will continue to fill until you turn off the tap.
Rather than turning off the tap (i.e. stopping the flow of emissions), reef restoration and adaptation interventions are akin to making the house flood resistant, so that when the bathtub does overflow (and it will), we can at least lessen the damage. In the coral world, this means trying to save