Coal, the Reef and Queensland's Central Contradiction
Queensland simultaneously hosts one of the world's most coal-dependent economies and its most celebrated living ecosystem. These two facts are no longer compatible.
The Carmichael Mine and the Reef: Did Adani's Approval Signal Anything About Queensland's Priorities?
When the Carmichael coal mine was approved in 2014 and reached operation by 2021, it forced a reckoning with what Queensland values — and what it is willing to place at risk.
2,300 Kilometres of Life: Understanding the Scale of the Great Barrier Reef
The Great Barrier Reef is not simply large — it is a different order of magnitude to almost everything else on Earth. To understand it is to reckon with scale itself.
The Reef 2050 Long-Term Sustainability Plan: Australia's Most Ambitious Marine Conservation Commitment
Forged in response to UNESCO pressure and a decade of ecological alarm, the Reef 2050 Plan is Australia's overarching, 35-year blueprint for governing its most irreplaceable natural inheritance.
The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority: Governing the World's Largest Protected Marine Area
Since 1975, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority has administered a governance challenge unlike any other on Earth — balancing use, science, sovereignty, and survival across 344,000 square kilometres of living sea.
Reef 2050 Water Quality Program: Can Queensland's Farmers Save the Reef's Coastal Zone?
The Reef 2050 Water Quality Improvement Plan places Queensland farmers at the centre of coral survival — a partnership of land, science, and governance built to outlast short-term politics.
The Great Barrier Reef's 1981 World Heritage Listing: What It Committed Australia To
When UNESCO inscribed the Great Barrier Reef in 1981, Australia accepted more than a title. It accepted a set of ongoing, enforceable obligations to protect a place belonging to all humanity.
Assisted Evolution and the Heat-Resistant Coral: Queensland's Reef Science Frontier
At research facilities in Townsville, Queensland scientists are attempting something audacious: accelerating evolution itself to produce corals capable of surviving a hotter ocean.
Sea Country: The First Nations Peoples of the Great Barrier Reef and Their Living Connection
Before the reef existed in its current form, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples lived on the land that now lies beneath it. Their custodianship has never ceased.
The Climate Crisis Facing the Great Barrier Reef: Bleaching, Heat and Irreversible Damage
Six mass bleaching events since 2016, record coral loss, and an accelerating cycle of heat and death: the Great Barrier Reef now faces its most serious existential test since formation.
The Great Barrier Reef: The World's Largest Living Structure and Queensland's Defining Heritage
Stretching 2,300 kilometres along Queensland's coast, the Great Barrier Reef is the planet's largest living structure — a civic, ecological and cultural fact that defines who Queenslanders are.
Can the Reef Survive 1.5 Degrees? What the Science Says About Coral's Future
The Paris Agreement's 1.5°C threshold was meant to protect coral reefs. The science now says even that guardrail may not be enough — and the window to find out is closing fast.
World Heritage in Danger: The UNESCO Listing Debate and Australia's Governance of the Reef
Since 2021, UNESCO has repeatedly threatened to list the Great Barrier Reef as World Heritage in Danger. What that debate reveals about Australia's governance obligations is more consequential than the label itself.
The Science of the Reef: Research Institutions Studying the World's Greatest Coral System
Australia's most consequential scientific project is not a single institution but a distributed architecture of knowledge — built over half a century to understand and protect the Great Barrier Reef.
Mass Bleaching Events: The Science and the Scale of Coral Die-Off
Since 1998, the Great Barrier Reef has endured eight confirmed mass bleaching events. The science of how and why coral bleaches reveals a system being pushed beyond the limits of recovery.
Traditional Owner Co-Management of the Reef: The Shift Toward Shared Governance
For decades, Traditional Owners were excluded from formal Reef governance. A profound structural shift is underway — one that recognises custodianship as inseparable from conservation.
Reef Tourism Operators: The Industry Most Directly Invested in Coral Survival
No industry has more to lose from coral decline than reef tourism. Operators have become frontline stewards — monitoring, planting, and defending the ecosystem their livelihoods depend upon.
Reef Restoration: The Science of Rebuilding a Bleached Reef System
When bleaching strips a reef of its living coral, the question science must answer is not only whether recovery is possible, but whether humans can meaningfully accelerate it at scale.
The Reef Economy: $6 Billion in Tourism and the Industry That Would Not Survive Without a Reef
The Great Barrier Reef generates billions annually and supports tens of thousands of jobs — but the tourism economy built around it exists only so long as the reef itself does.
Crown of Thorns Starfish: The Reef's Most Destructive Native Predator
The crown of thorns starfish is native, natural, and capable of stripping a reef of 90 per cent of its living coral. Understanding why it outbreaks is inseparable from understanding the Reef itself.
Agricultural Runoff and the Reef: The Water Quality Crisis From Queensland's Farms
The Great Barrier Reef faces a slow, land-born crisis: fertilisers, sediments and pesticides washing from Queensland's farms into the Reef lagoon, compounding the damage wrought by a warming ocean.