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JUSTIN GILLIGAN Photography

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13 images Created 8 Jul 2021

Australia's Great Reef in the South

It may be the cooler, little-known cousin of the Great Barrier Reef, but Australia’s Great Southern Reef (GSR) is just as important and just as much in need of our attention. Surfers paddle over it, anglers fish off it, almost 70 per cent of Australians live within 50km of it and it contributes $10 billion a year to the Australian economy. Yet few of us have heard of it – indeed, until recently, it didn’t even have a name. The GSR runs for along Australia’s southern coastline, from northern New South Wales to half way up Western Australia. Its northern cousin, the Great Barrier Reef (GBR), is made up of more than 2900 individual coral-dominated reefs, while the GSR is comprised of thousands of kelp-dominated rocky reefs. These range from intertidal rock pools to shallow reefs and deep-water environments dominated by sponge gardens. Just as warm water can cause coral bleaching on the GBR, increasing water temperatures are having a significant impact on the GSR. Scientists have identified that Australia’s temperate seas are warming two-to-four times more rapidly than the global average, largely due to the influence of the East Australian Current off the east coast and the Leeuwin Current off the west coast, both of which transport warm water southward.
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  • Kelp communities, such as this flowing stand of bull kelp off the Tasmanian Peninsula, are among the most productive ecosystems on Earth. They require cool, nutrient-rich waters to thrive, and are currently under threat from a warming sea.
    GreatSouthernReef_01.jpg
  • Mick Baron (Eaglehawk Dive Centre) photographed in December 2016 holding a photograph taken by Gary Bell (Oceanwide Images) from in 1993 taken in the same location showing the loss of giant kelp off the Tasman Peninsula.
    GreatSouthernReef_02.jpg
  • A thick, ocean-hugging sheet of cold mist creeps to the dramatic cliffs lining the shore of the Tasman Peninsula. Beneath the surface, the arrival of warm, low-nutrient water from the north has weakened the giant kelp forests, making them more susceptible to storms and eventually leading to their collapse across much of their former range.
    GreatSouthernReef_03.jpg
  • Professor Craig Johnson, associate director of the University of Tasmania’s Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies began documentaing the impact of warming water on Tasmania’s marine ecosystems. Using a mix of historic and new aerial photography, he showed that between the 1940s and 2011, giant kelp forests had declined by a staggering 95 per cent.
    GreatSouthernReef_04.jpg
  • To better understand the influence of kelp on temperate systems, Professor Johnson’s team painstakingly transplanted 500 common kelp plants – the most abundant kelp species on the GSR – onto 28 artificial patch reefs near Maria Island. Then studied how the density of kelp influenced the productivity of the reef.
    GreatSouthernReef_05.jpg
  • A study by scientists at the University of Tasmania revealed that southern rock lobster larvae experience significantly higher settlement success and lower predation rates when they land in kelp forests than when they end up in a barren habitat. It’s no surprise then that Tasmania’s native lobsters have become less numerous as kelp forests have disappeared.
    GreatSouthernReef_06.jpg
  • The rock lobster fishery isn’t the only industry feeling the heat. Over the past few decades, southern Australia’s abalone fishery has been heavily impacted by climate change as kelp forests have declined and kelp-eating urchins have proliferated. These black-lipped abalone harvested off Actaeon Islands contribute to the seasonal quota – Tasmania affords the largest wild abalone fishery in the world, providing 25 per cent of global production.
    GreatSouthernReef_07.jpg
  • Australia’s Great Southern Reef supports a range of recreational fisheries. In Tasmanian waters gillnets can still be set for extended periods and capture species such as marble fish and herring cale that live among temperate bull kelp forests.. Although the Great Southern Reef is much larger than its northern cousin and contributes more to the economy, it receives a fraction of the research funding partly down to the fact that they can be relatively difficult to access.
    GreatSouthernReef_08.jpg
  • Commercial kelp harvester John Micic knee-deep in bull kelp at the Causeway near Currie on King Island, off the northwest coast of Tasmania. The kelp is washed ashore by Bass Strait’s renowned swell and wind, which often makes harvest from the Causeway a risky business. Bull kelp ontains the highest level of any Australian seaweed of alginates, the key exctract for this commercial kelp harvest industry.
    GreatSouthernReef_09.jpg
  • In the early morning light on King Island, Jason Russell ties off rope onto the holdfasts of his bull kelp harvest washed ashore by the swell before winching it back to his trailer and then hanging it out o dry at the King Island Kelp Industries factory.
    GreatSouthernReef_10.jpg
  • The King Island Kelp Industries factory support the commercial harvest and export of dried Bull Kelp from King Island. The price has jumped from $300 to $700 a tonne. On a good day, a team can collect a tonne of kelp, which makes the industry a potentially lucrative option for locals. The factory struggles to keep up with an increasing demand.
    GreatSouthernReef_11.jpg
  • Once dried, the bull kelp is fed through a hammer mill in the King Island Kelp Industries factory to reduce it to the required granular form and size to used used as an additive to a vast range of products, from fruit drinks, ice cream, cosmetics and dyes to pharmaceuticals and bandages.
    GreatSouthernReef_12.jpg
  • The air is heavy with the pungent smell of salt and fish and something slightly putrid, and the kelp is almost literally everywhere. It forms thick, slippery blankets over the rocky shore. On King Island, bull kelp is so pervasive that it’s hard to imagine a future in which it might not exist. But the outlook for the region’s kelp forests is anything but clear.
    GreatSouthernReef_13.jpg