Media Report

ABC News

16 January 2014

Tour boat operators, with the help of a $1.1 million government grant, are at the forefront of the fight to manage the impact of the crown of thorns starfish on the Great Barrier Reef. This gallery explores how they do it.

Col McKenzie says teams of around 10 divers stay at sea for 10-day trips, diving four times each day and ultimately destroying around 5,000 starfish each trip. But the teams are having little impact. Read more

ABC News

16 January 2014

Can mines coexist with a healthy reef? That's a notion Positive Change for Marine Life is exploring in a feature length documentary focussed on the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area.

It is one of Australia's most significant natural drawcards. Read more

ABC News

14 January 2014

It's been an escape technique for humpbacked conch snails for thousands of years - a flicking foot that is triggered when they smell predators.

But ocean acidification may put a hitch in the getaway of the snails with James Cook University researchers finding that the snails' jumping response is compromised as CO2 levels in the water rise. Read more

ABC News

14 January 2014

A conservation lobby group says it has been overwhelmed by community opposition to a proposed major dredging project in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

The park's authority has until the end of January to decide if it will issue a permit for three million cubic metres of dredge spoil to be dumped into the reef to allow the expansion of the Abbot Point Coal Terminal near Bowen. Read more

Gladstone Observer

14 January 2014

THE impact of catchment pollutants on the Great Barrier Reef is nothing compared to the devastation caused by a reduction in salinity following major floods, according to CQUniversity researcher Dr Alison Jones, who says major floods are "nature's ground zero".

The University of Queensland

13 January 2014

University of Queensland researchers have found physical evidence in Great Barrier Reef corals of a little-known, long-term climate pattern in the Pacific Ocean.

Brisbane Times

10 January 2014

“There are a lot of impacts that are possible certainly whenever we are dredging large amounts of sediment. We have the potential for that sediment to move.

The University of Queensland

09 January 2014

Green turtle populations have expanded so much in Indonesia’s east coast islands marine protected areas that they are adopting new feeding habits, degrading the ecosystem and threatening their own conservation.

Scientists and conservationists had believed thatmarine protected areas would be key to enhancing the recovery of protected species and ecosystems. Read more

Phys.org

09 January 2014

Scientists have gained new insight into the damage done to coral in the Southern Great Barrier Reef by river run-off caused by intense weather events like the 2011 floods.

Core samples obtained from corals around the Keppel Islands reveals the way flood plumes from Queensland's Fitzroy River catchment have impacted reefs as far as 50km from the mouth of the river. Read more

Brisbane Times

09 January 2014

A decision on whether to allow dredge spoil from the Abbot Point coal port to be dumped inside the Great Barrier Reef marine park should be delayed until after an inquiry into the Gladstone bund wall leak, conservationists and a Queensland Senator say.