‘Zero recovery’ for damaged coral

SYDNEY: Coral bleached for two consecutive years at Australia’s Great Barrier Reef has “zero prospect” of recovery, scientists warned yesterday, as they confirmed the site has again been hit by warming sea temperatures.

Researchers said last month they were detecting another round of mass bleaching this year after a severe event last year, and their fears were confirmed after aerial surveys of the entire 2,300km-long bio-diverse reef.

Last year, the northern areas of the World Heritage-listed area were hardest hit, with the middlethird now experiencing the worst effects.

“Bleached coral is not necessarily dead, but in the severe central region we anticipate high levels of coral loss,” said James Kerry, a marine biologist at James Cook University who led the aerial surveys.

“It takes at least a decade for a full recovery of even the fastest growing coral, so mass bleaching events a year apart offer zero prospect of recovery for reefs that were damaged last year.”

“The combined impact of this back-to-back bleaching stretches for 1,500km, leaving only the southern third unscathed,” said Terry Hughes, head of the Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, also at James Cook University. AFP