Sustainability Strategy Analysis for the Great Barrier Reef

This report provides a sustainability strategy analysis for the Great Barrier Reef, focusing on the environmental challenges leading to coral bleaching. It identifies global warming as a primary cause and proposes strategies such as reducing water pollution through increased funding for sustainable agricultural practices, banning offshore dumping and capital dredging, transitioning to renewable energy sources, and addressing illegal fishing. The analysis emphasizes the need for urgent action to cut global warming and implement clean energy plans to protect the coral reefs from further degradation. It also highlights the importance of international cooperation and policy support to ensure the long-term health and resilience of the Great Barrier Reef ecosystem, stating that without pragmatic sense the Great Barrier Reef cannot be able to afford these. Across countries numbers of coral reefs have turned into white solid graveyards due to the rise in the ocean temperature which causes mostly due to the increasing greenhouse gases with an atmosphere.

Running head: SUSTAINABILITY STRATEGY ANALYSIS
Sustainability Strategy Analysis
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Introduction:
The Great Barrier Reef is considered to be a natural wonder on the earth that stretches
nearly about 1400 miles. The entire reef is even larger than Italy’s size. The government of
Australia has identified that there are major environmental challenges that the reef is facing
with the course of time, therefore the government has taken some specific steps for protecting
the reef for the future generations (Starck 2017). Studies have shown that major coral
bleaching have taken place few times and the last recorded coral bleach has also lead to the
loss of nearly about 85% of the entire reef due to several reasons such as air pollution,
continuously changing climate in Australia, deforestation, land degradation, desertification,
agricultural overgrazing and clearing, water pollution etc (Palaniswami, Rao and Bainbridge
2017). There have been alarming outcomes of past researches on the reef and the ecologists
suggest that these results should be taken quite seriously. Researchers have also indicated that
the changes in climate is the most significant threat for the Great Barrier Reef, therefore some
even also indicated that only taking drastic actions towards reversing the global warming can
preserve the coral reefs. Therefore this paper outlines the potential strategies for sustainable
environmental development in the future along with highlighting the key points and focusing
on the most significant environmental issue.
Strategies for future sustainable environmental development:
The most significant reason for the Coral bleaching at the Great Barrier Reef is global
warming. The Australian government have already taking few steps towards it such as the
Paris agreement which states that the country will try to reduce the harmful emissions by at
least 50% per capita by the year 2030 (Emslie et al. 2015). Other than this the potential
strategies that can be taken for preserving the reef are:

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Slashing the water pollution
The researchers have indicated that if any Rapid Action is not taken for improving the
quality of the water it is highly possible that the leaves will be lost in near future. The water is
polluted heavily from the land due to the pesticides, fertilizers, sediments from agricultural,
urban sources and land clearing, therefore major approaches should be taken for controlling
the quality of water and preventing the pollution (Kennedy, Ordoñez and Diaz-Pulido 2018).
However, the present strategies for controlling the urban expansion or agricultural pollution
are not working that much. Therefore potential other Strategies for slashing the water
pollution are:
The Australian government should increase the federal funding towards agriculture so
that the farmers can opt for more sustainable practices which will eventually reduce the water
pollution. The government should also ensure proper funding for projects like wetlands
restoration and vegetation. Along with dress developing a system for monitoring and for the
reporting the water quality can be helpful for preventing the water pollution. However this
requires so appropriate funding as it will include scientific researches on ways for reducing
pollution in the water quality (Clark et al. 2017). Other than that the tree clearing in
Queensland also causes additional runoff pollution in the water. Therefore the government
should make legal steps for protecting such important places as clearing trees we trigger the
climate change and impact more on the Global Warming.
Immediate steps for stopping the damaged port expansions
The government should immediately Ban all the offshore dumping and capital
dredging which damages the port expansions. For example 20 million tonnes of dredging at
Gladstone has been approved already. Such dumping has still been permitted without any
hard limits of how much could be dumped at the offshore. The data have shown
approximately 1 million M3 of dredge spoil tend to be dumped in the water each year (Brodie

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et al. 2017). Therefore and the Australian government should make sure that the maintenance
grade spoil is disposed on Shaw in a safe way so that it does not spoil the water anymore.
Driving Australia towards renewable energy usage in future
This is a major step towards preventing the global warming and it will lead to a major
reduction in terms of harmful emissions. Scientists indicate that there have been major
influences of human on the earth climate and due to such full carbon emissions and harmful
energy usage has led the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide or greenhouse gases
increasing by 100 times for each million (Hughes, Day and Brodie 2015). Careful focusing
on using more renewable energy can save the ecosystem inevitably.
Addressing illegal fishing
The government and concerned authorities should emphasize on stopping illegal
fishing by employing educational campaigns regarding the illegal and legal places for fishing.
This is significant critically not just due to the commercial fishes but also the recreational
ones as removing the predatory fishes by both recreational and commercial fishes has a
massive influence on the ecosystem of the reef (Graham et al. 2015).
Summary and Conclusion:
From the above discussion, it can be said that the most significant reason for the Coral
bleaching at the Great Barrier Reef is global warming and the change of climate. The
researchers state that preventing serial bleaching can the only possible by preventing the
Global Warming. Curbing illegal fishing maybe a small step towards the prevention but it
will not work in the long-term rather preventing global warming production of water
pollution and moving towards renewable and sustainable energy usage can save the heat
induced Coral bleaching at the Great Barrier Reef (Wolff et al. 2018). The new researches
have indicated that there should be argent moves for cutting the global warming as nothing
else can be more effective for protecting the corals from the mass bleaching in the

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forthcoming time. It should be noted that the corals bleach only if the water temperature
persist hire for around the week or more the polyps tend to reject their plant partners therefore
the corals turned as bleached however if the temperature tends to be higher for long time the
Coral can die as well. Therefore on the scientist suggests that the rising temperature causes is
mostly due to global warming their full it may be only a matter of time before more such
bleaching events occur. The studies has also focused on the lack of pragmatic sense of the
Queensland and Australian government for supporting the largest coal mines which is
supposed to export the call through the reef waters. This can increase the dredging along with
the Marine traffic however at this stage the Great Barrier Reef cannot be able to afford these.
Across countries numbers of coral reefs have turned into white solid graveyards due to the
rise in the ocean temperature which causes mostly due to the increasing greenhouse gases
with an atmosphere (Clark et al. 2016). The water temperature tends to stress the coral and
forces them in expelling the colourful algae inside them. Therefore it can be said that in order
to save the coral reefs building a sustainable future can be a major solution. In order to do
that, the Australian government should take immediate steps towards building a clean power
plan with strict standards and rules for reducing carbon emission from power plants along
with building more support for climate policies both nationally and globally. Also opting for
more renewable energy can be helpful for preventing global warming along with preventing
the Great Barrier Reef from decaying.

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Reference List
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