This is the same coral photographed just as white syndrome* took hold (29 January 2022)
Let the pictures do the talking. This is the reality on our reef today, laid out in a two-minute video, below.
Problems with water quality have been documented from a human health perspective since the 1960s, and concerns about the health of the reef have been recorded since the 1980s.
As part of my PhD, I am systematically tracing and mapping that evidence – bringing together scientific research, government reports, historical records, maps, photographs and other sources to build a clearer picture of how changes on land and in the lagoon have shaped the reef over time.
*White syndrome is a general term for a collection of virulent coral diseases that cause acute tissue loss, completely stripping the living tissue to reveal the stark white, denuded skeleton.