GREAT BARRIER REEF
Details of the impact.
As the world’s most extensive coral reef ecosystem, the Great Barrier Reef is a globally significant entity. Its entire ecosystem is inscribed as the most important one in the whole world. This wide depth range includes vast shallow inshore areas, mid-shelf and outer reefs, and beyond the continental shelf to oceanic waters over 2,000 meters deep.
The Great Barrier Reef is composed by some individual reefs of varying sizes and shapes and it also covers over 900 islands which range from small sandy cays to large rugged continental islands. These seascapes and landscapes, collectively, provide some of the most spectacular maritime scenery in the world, and the diversity of species and habits make the Great Barrier Reef one of the richest and most complex ecosystems on the world.
The Great Coral Reef also represents the base of an ecosystem above and below the water, and provides some of the most spectacular scenery on Earth. This is what gives it an outstanding scientific importance and what make it become the main point of biodiversity concentration. Nevertheless, most species are endangered of extinction due to ongoing erosion and contamination of the Great coral reef as its ecosystems get destroyed, and this species can’t get fed and finally die. If this contamination continues within the years, the Great Barrier Reef will continue losing fishes, crustaceans and other species. Thus, more than 18000 species of animals, below and above the water, are endangered now due to the destruction of the Great Barrier Reef.
Involved Companies
An Australian senate committee investigated the management of the federal government and the state of Queensland's Great Barrier, a World Heritage Site since 1981 by Unesco to included it in the endangered heritage list if that was necessary. Therefore, due to increasing contamination and destruction of the Great Barrier Reef, it has been included in the endangered heritage list.
Nowadays, some companies like Greenpeace, WWF and Unesco are trying to stop contamination and other issues that damage the Great Barrier reef, campaigning to prohibit activities that cause pollution and also try to make people conscious of the importance that it has. Even though, some other companies are responsible for contaminating and destroying the Great Barrier Reef.
A new Australian government report on water quality of the coast of Queensland, northeast of the country, warns that agricultural pesticides are causing considerable damage to the Great Barrier Reef. The report advises farmers in the area to be more careful with the chemicals they use in their work. It found that nearly a quarter of farmers and 12% of pastors use methods that exceed regulatory limits for the environmental balance of the area. In the new study, they have found traces of pesticides from Monsanto to 60 kilometers inside the reef very toxic concentrations.
In recent years the coral bleaching due to pollution has been dramatic, and the new Australian government report on water quality found pesticides to crops of Monsanto and similar companies, they are causing enormous damage to the largest reef in the world, a natural wonder considered essential for the survival of many species of animals.
