IPA Media Release – IPA Launches ‘Beige Reef’: A New Short Film By Dr Jennifer Marohasy On The Great Barrier Reef

The Institute of Public Affairs has released a new, must-watch short film by Senior Fellow Dr Jennifer Marohasy which contradicts everything you’ve heard about climate change threatening the Great Barrier Reef.

In February this year, The Economist reported that “rising temperatures are killing the coral” at the Great Barrier Reef and “if this goes on too long, the reef will die”.

The IPA’s short film allows Australians to see for themselves that claims the Great Barrier Reef is in crisis are not true.  It is vital that Australians know the truth about the Great Barrier Reef.

A key claim in a January 2016 article in the scientific journal, Nature, is that there are no longer any living colonies of Acropora – a particular type of coral – at Stone Island off Bowen Harbour in the Whitsundays, and that other corals are now covered in mud.

Dr Peter Ridd’s path to dismissal by James Cook University began with an email questioning claims that the corals at Stone Island were bleached, dead and reduced to mudflats.

Claims of catastrophic coral bleaching have been terrible for local tourism, driving people away.  Agriculture is also being blamed, as a result, the Queensland Government is adding even more red tape for farmers.

Dr Marohasy and her team, including Emmy Award-winning underwater cinematographer, Clint Hempsall, went to find out the true state of the coral reefs around Stone Island.

What they found contradicts the Nature paper and proves this key reef system is very much alive.

They filmed 25-hectares of 100% healthy coral cover off Stone Island at the entrance to Bowen Harbour which Dr Marohasy has named Beige Reef because of its colour.  Most corals in the world are beige because this is the colour of the most common chlorophyll in the algae that live within corals.

Beige Reef takes you on an adventure to a beautiful coral garden, one the experts claim has been destroyed by global warming.

Dr Marohasy is planning to make more short documentaries on coral reefs including the more colourful corals in the outer ribbon reefs and the coral cays.

The suggestion that the Great Barrier Reef is dying is based on such claims as those made by the Nature paper – and if this is wrong, then what else are they wrong about?

Visit the IPA’s YouTube channel to watch Beige Reef.

Nature Scientific Reports Article: ‘Historical photographs revisited: A case study for dating and characterizing recent loss of coral cover on the inshore Great Barrier Reef’: https://www.nature.com/articles/srep19285