History of the Great Barrier Reef Timeline

The Australian government has had the goal of protecting the World Heritage Site since 1972 when they created The Australian Institute of Marine Science to conduct marine research.

Royal Commissions disallowed oil drilling in the Great Barrier Reef, and in 1975 the Government of Australia created the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and prohibited various activities through the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act.

Image source: Great Barrier Reef Marine Park

In 1999, the Australian Parliament passed the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, which improved the operation of national environmental law by providing guidance about regional biodiversity conservation priorities.

Image source: Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999

In 2001, the GBRMPA released a report about the declining water quality in the Great Barrier Reef and detailed the importance of this issue for the reef's long-term health.

In response to the 2001 water quality report, the Australian and Queensland governments launched a joint initiative in 2003 containing 65 actions built on previous legislation. Their immediate goal was to halt and reverse the decline in water quality entering the reef by 2013.

As of July 2004, approximately one-third of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park became protected from species removal of any kind, including fishing, without written permission, following a new zoning plan widely acclaimed as a new global benchmark for marine ecosystem conservation.

In July 2004, a new zoning plan took effect for the entire Marine Park. At the time, it was the largest Marine Protected Area in the world, although in 2006 the new Northwestern Hawaiian Islands National Monument became larger.

In 2006, a review of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act of 1975 recommended no further zoning plan changes until 2013, and that every five years a peer-reviewed outlook report should be published examining the reef's health, management, and environmental pressures.

In 2009, the water quality plan was updated following the 2008 Reefocus summit. The updated version focused on strategic priority areas and actions to achieve 2013 goals, including a 50% reduction in nitrogen and phosphorus loads by 2013 and a 20% reduction in sediment load by 2020.

Four traditional owners groups agreed to cease the hunting of dugongs in the area in 2011 due to their declining numbers, partially accelerated by seagrass damage from Cyclone Yasi.

In March 2015, the Australian and Queensland governments formed a 35-year plan titled 'Reef 2050 Plan' proposing measures for the long-term management of pollution, climate change and other threats until 2050. Critics note it does not address climate change, the root cause of the problem.

In 2018, Humane Society International filed a lawsuit against the government of Queensland to stop shark culling in the Great Barrier Reef, after Queensland's 'shark control' program killed about 50,000 sharks from 1962 to 2018 and 84,000 marine animals overall from 1962 to 2015.

Image source: Shark culling

As part of the Reef 2050 plan, an AUD$443 million grant was given to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation in 2018 to fund protection and restoration efforts.

Image source: Great Barrier Reef Foundation

The Reef 2050 Water Quality Improvement Plan was announced in 2018 in order to help transition local communities, agricultural organizations and industries to more sustainable practices.

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act 1975 stipulates an Outlook Report on the Reef's health, pressures, and future every five years. The last report was published in 2019.

Image source: Great Barrier Reef Marine Park

As of 1996, 27 islands on the Great Barrier Reef supported resorts. In that year most tourism in the region was domestically generated, with the most popular visiting times during the Australian winter.

A Deloitte report published by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority in March 2013 states that the Reef's 2,000 kilometres of coastline attracts tourism worth A$6.4 billion annually and employs more than 64,000 people.

Mass coral bleaching events due to marine heatwaves occurred in the summers of 1998, 2002 and 2006, foreshadowing the increasingly frequent bleaching crises that would follow.

Image source: Coral bleaching

In 2000, an outbreak contributed to a loss of 66% of live coral cover on sampled reefs in a study by the Reef Research Centre, demonstrating the impact of predatory outbreaks on coral health.

On 3 April 2010, the bulk coal carrier Shen Neng 1 ran aground on Douglas Shoals, spilling up to four tonnes of oil into the water and causing extensive damage to the reef.

Image source: Jia Yong

According to a study published in October 2012 by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the reef has lost more than half its coral cover since 1985, with two-thirds of the loss occurring from 1998.

In December 2013, environment minister Greg Hunt approved a plan for dredging to create three shipping terminals as part of a coalport construction. On 31 January 2014, the GBRMPA issued a dumping permit allowing three million cubic metres of sea bed from Abbot Point to be unloaded in the waters of the Marine Park.

Image source: Abbot Point

A March 2016 report stated that coral bleaching was more widespread than previously thought, seriously affecting the northern parts of the reef as a result of warming ocean temperatures.

Image source: Coral bleaching

In October 2016, Outside published an obituary for the Great Barrier Reef; the article was criticised for being premature and hindering efforts to bolster the resilience of the reef.

In March 2017, the journal Nature published a paper showing that huge sections of an 800-kilometre (500 mi) stretch in the northern part of the reef died in the course of 2016 due to high water temperatures, attributed to the effects of global climate change.

In July 2017, UNESCO published a draft decision expressing serious concern about the impact of coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef, warning Australia it would not meet the targets of the Reef 2050 report without considerable work to improve water quality.

The percentage of baby corals being born on the Great Barrier Reef dropped drastically in 2018, with scientists describing it as the early stage of a 'huge natural selection event unfolding', caused by deaths of mature breeding adults in the 2016–17 bleaching events.

In 2020, a study found that the Great Barrier Reef has lost more than half of its corals since 1995 due to warmer seas driven by climate change, reaffirming earlier findings of dramatic coral decline.

A widespread coral bleaching event occurred in the summer of 2020, adding to previous events in 1998, 2002, 2006, 2016 and 2017, with coral bleaching expected to become an annual occurrence.

In March 2022, another mass bleaching event was confirmed, raising further concerns about the future of the reef system, especially considering possible effects of the El Niño weather phenomenon.