Summary: Effect Of Tourism On The Great Barrier Reef
Effect of Tourism on the Great Barrier Reef
Introduction
The Great Barrier Reef is located in North Eastern Australia off the coast of Queensland. It is world renowned for its stunning scenery and its flora and fauna diversity, it has also been acknowledged as one of the seven natural wonders of the world. The Great Barrier Reef stretches across 344400km2 and includes thousands of individual reefs and hundreds of islands which are occupied by around 600 types of hard and soft coral, around 1625 varieties of fish, 3000 types of molluscs, more than 30 species of whales and dolphins, just to mention a few components that make up The Great Barrier Reefs vast diversity. In order to preserve and protect the unique array of ecological communities, …show more content…
The result for coral rubble would have been caused by either a previous storm or from tourists visiting the island and damaging the coral as they swam over it, it could also be caused by boats either driving too close over the coral or anchoring onto it causing it to break into coral rubble. The recently dead coral was produced by coral bleaching from boats releasing gasses into the atmosphere. The collected data also gave a general idea of the diversity of sea life found in the Lady Musgrave Island Lagoon, through this data it is found that there were 102 sea cucumbers spotted, 18 giant clams, 10 anemone-fish, 132 butterflyfish, 105 grazing herbivores, 11 cods and groupers, 22 coral trout’s, 9 maori wrasse, 7 turtles and no sharks were noticed. It was obvious that certain species of marine life were more prominent in the areas that were monitored this was because different areas hold key components for the everyday life of different marine life. Turtles were only spotted around one coral cay for their surrounding fish and habitat provided them with a day to day routine for cleaning. Anemone-fish are generally only found inside or around an anemone therefore where …show more content…
An average increase of 4.125 sea cucmbers were sighted between the years 2014 and 2016, anemonefish increased by an average of 0.33 sightings from 2014 to 2016, an idea can be justified that since there was an increase on anemonefish there will most likely also be an increase in anemones. Therefore the tourism has had generally no consequences towards the marine animals. The was an increase of 3.375 butterflyfish from the years 2014 to 2016 and an increase of 1.875 grazing herbivores sighted. Due to the increase of grazing herbivores it could possibly be the cause of the increase of an average of 0.416 cods and groupers. There was also an increase of 0.458 turtles spotted per group.
These results that were retrieved can produce the idea that tourism on The Great Barrier Reef has no affect on the marine life surveyed. This is because the results were generally steady and though some animal sighting decreased there was also animal sightings that increased. However it was determined that tourism on The Great Barrier Reef has a minor negative effect on the
Introduction
The Great Barrier Reef is located in North Eastern Australia off the coast of Queensland. It is world renowned for its stunning scenery and its flora and fauna diversity, it has also been acknowledged as one of the seven natural wonders of the world. The Great Barrier Reef stretches across 344400km2 and includes thousands of individual reefs and hundreds of islands which are occupied by around 600 types of hard and soft coral, around 1625 varieties of fish, 3000 types of molluscs, more than 30 species of whales and dolphins, just to mention a few components that make up The Great Barrier Reefs vast diversity. In order to preserve and protect the unique array of ecological communities, …show more content…
The result for coral rubble would have been caused by either a previous storm or from tourists visiting the island and damaging the coral as they swam over it, it could also be caused by boats either driving too close over the coral or anchoring onto it causing it to break into coral rubble. The recently dead coral was produced by coral bleaching from boats releasing gasses into the atmosphere. The collected data also gave a general idea of the diversity of sea life found in the Lady Musgrave Island Lagoon, through this data it is found that there were 102 sea cucumbers spotted, 18 giant clams, 10 anemone-fish, 132 butterflyfish, 105 grazing herbivores, 11 cods and groupers, 22 coral trout’s, 9 maori wrasse, 7 turtles and no sharks were noticed. It was obvious that certain species of marine life were more prominent in the areas that were monitored this was because different areas hold key components for the everyday life of different marine life. Turtles were only spotted around one coral cay for their surrounding fish and habitat provided them with a day to day routine for cleaning. Anemone-fish are generally only found inside or around an anemone therefore where …show more content…
An average increase of 4.125 sea cucmbers were sighted between the years 2014 and 2016, anemonefish increased by an average of 0.33 sightings from 2014 to 2016, an idea can be justified that since there was an increase on anemonefish there will most likely also be an increase in anemones. Therefore the tourism has had generally no consequences towards the marine animals. The was an increase of 3.375 butterflyfish from the years 2014 to 2016 and an increase of 1.875 grazing herbivores sighted. Due to the increase of grazing herbivores it could possibly be the cause of the increase of an average of 0.416 cods and groupers. There was also an increase of 0.458 turtles spotted per group.
These results that were retrieved can produce the idea that tourism on The Great Barrier Reef has no affect on the marine life surveyed. This is because the results were generally steady and though some animal sighting decreased there was also animal sightings that increased. However it was determined that tourism on The Great Barrier Reef has a minor negative effect on the