Letter of Transmittal
The Hon Tanya Plibersek MP
Minister for the Environment and Water
Parliament House
Canberra
Dear Minister
I am pleased to provide the Great Barrier Reef Outlook Report 2024 to you as Minister for the Environment and Water and, through you, to the Australian Parliament and the people of Australia.
The Great Barrier Reef Outlook Report 2024 has been prepared by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority based on the best available information and covers the period January 2019 to December 2023. It fulfils the requirements of Section 54 of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act 1975 (Cth). The report includes nine assessments covering biodiversity, ecosystem health, heritage values, commercial and non-commercial use, factors influencing the Reef’s values, existing protection and management, resilience, risks and the long-term outlook for both the ecosystem and heritage values. The contents of the report were independently peer reviewed.
The legislation requires that an Outlook Report be prepared every five years. As in Outlook Report 2009, 2014 and 2019, this report identifies that the Great Barrier Reef Region faces significant pressures ranging in scale from local to global. Climate change remains the greatest threat to the Great Barrier Reef.
The Great Barrier Reef retains its outstanding universal value as a World Heritage Area. While its natural beauty and phenomena endures, its integrity is being increasingly challenged. Cumulative pressures, predominantly from climate change, combined with the time required for the recovery of key habitats, species and ecosystem processes continue to affect the overall health of the Great Barrier Reef. Recent recovery in some ecosystem values demonstrates that the Reef is still resilient, but its capacity to tolerate and recover is jeopardised by a rapidly changing climate, with implications for Traditional Owners, Reef-dependent communities and industries.
The arrival of El Niño climate conditions in mid-2023 highlighted the narrowing of critical recovery windows for the Reef’s health. It brought record global temperatures on land and in the oceans and, by the end of summer 2023-24, the now-familiar sight of mass coral bleaching. The full impacts of this latest mass coral bleaching event are still being determined.
Even with the recent management initiatives to reduce threats and improve resilience, the overall future outlook for the Great Barrier Reef is very poor. These findings will be best addressed through urgent national and global action to deliver on international commitments that would limit temperatures to 1.5°C of warming—or as close as possible. Across the Region and at local scales, it is imperative that everything possible is done to create recovery windows for the Reef. Improving water quality and enhancing on-ground management actions are critical to addressing compounding threats and supporting Reef resilience.
I commend this Outlook Report to you for tabling in both Houses of the Australian Parliament.
Yours Sincerely
Ian Poiner
Chair
Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority