Yet corals are harvested by the Queensland Coral Fishery and sold into the global aquarium trade. For a Reef facing unprecedented pressures, healthy corals must not be chipped away for private profit.
Most Australians are unaware that the country’s largest commercial coral fishery exists on the Great Barrier Reef. The Queensland Coral Fishery allows harvests of up to 190 tonnes of coral from the Reef each year.
Fishers cut corals from the Reef using hammers and chisels, including some of our most unique and colourful corals, found nowhere else on earth. Most of these corals are exported overseas to be displayed in aquarium tanks, far from the Reef they came from.
While fishing quotas are in place for the main species targeted by the fishery, these are based on historical fishing effort and not in step with science.
The Great Barrier Reef is home to hundreds of species of corals. Hard corals are the backbone of the Reef, providing the structure for which thousands of species depend. Climate change is turbocharging mass bleaching events, cyclones and floods. Extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and severe, killing corals and putting the future of our Reef at risk. If we lose corals, we lose the Great Barrier Reef as we know it.
The scientific outlook for the Great Barrier Reef and its corals is very poor. The Reef has now experienced six mass bleaching events in the last nine years. The same corals affected by bleaching are being harvested by the Queensland Coral Fishery, likely putting the survival of some species at serious risk. Some corals are more resilient than others and are essential for Reef recovery, but if our healthiest and most heat-resistant corals keep being harvested, we are limiting the Reef’s ability to bounce back from devastating bleaching events.
Tank-grown corals provide a solution that can give our Reef’s coral a chance to recover. Corals are already being grown in aquaculture facilities by commercial fishing businesses, and we must reduce our reliance on harvesting these corals from the Reef. The Australian and Queensland Governments must support the coral fishery to rapidly transition from wild harvest methods to tank-grown aquaculture to protect this struggling ecosystem.
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