Reef displaying its true colours
NEW images show the stunning recovery of coral affected by mass bleaching events on the Great Barrier Reef.
World- renowned underwater photographer Stephen Frink captured the shots on the latest dive expedition to remote reefs off Cape York.
“It was some of the healthiest reef systems I’ve seen in the last five years of diving,’’ the 40- year industry veteran said.
He also took rare images of a sea anemone spawning in synchronicity with the annual coral spawning event on the 2300km- long natural wonder.
In March, scientists reported two- thirds of coral coverage had been wiped out in mass bleaching events in the 700km stretch of reef north of Port Douglas, in far north Queensland.
“We’d been led to believe you’ve got a ‘ great big dead coral reef’,” the Florida- based publisher of Alert Diver magazine, read by 240,000 divers in the US, said. “But there was very little sign of coral bleaching or mortality.
“Everywhere we went it was some of the healthiest, most abundant and colourful coral cover you could hope to see.’’
The Spirit of Freedom expedition last week dived 38 outer reef sites from the Cod Hole, near Lizard Island, to the turtle rookery of Raine Island, off the tip of Cape York. A new report found the number of natural World Heritage sites at risk from climate change had doubled in three years.
The new International Union for Conservation of Nature ( IUCN) report was launched at the UN climate summit in Bonn, Germany, where the world’s nations are working on the 2015 landmark Paris agreement.
“Climate change acts fast and is not sparing the finest treasures of our planet,” Inger Andersen, IUCN director- general, said.
The report highlights the threat of warmer, more acidic seas, which scientists blame for coral bleaching events.