The Great Barrier Reef is responsible
Close your eyes and think of eternity and that is how far The Great Barrier Reef seems to stretch. It is enormous – the largest World Heritage area – and includes around 900 islands and thousands of individual reefs.
The sheer scale of this iconic site could make administrators in Queensland, Australia throw up their arms in surrender at the daunting prospects of an influx of 4.9 million recreational visitors each year. But the Reef’s Marine Park Authority has been awarded the World and Tourism Council’s Tourism for Tomorrow 2007 Destination Award for their efforts to protect the Reef’s future - and combine it with what the judges’ report summary called “outstanding” and “excellent” business management practices.
About one third of the area is now fully protected but there are still problems over illegal fishing, polluting agricultural discharges, coral bleaching and starfish outbreaks. But the determination to safeguard the territory is paramount and weaves like a strong thread through all of their sustainable agenda.
The necessity for interdependence and strong partnership between the Reef and the tourism industry has been applied in a commanding and caring fashion, resulting in the Reef, the environment and the culture benefiting alongside commercial success. There are now 50,000 people employed in tourism in this region. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) has produced and distributed thousands of pages of maps, brochures and other educational material. Its programmes, including High Standards Tourism, have received widespread recognition.
Due to the complexity of environmental management of tourism, maintaining standards at the GBRMPA is complicated. The ecosystem is as complex as the tourism industry, the politics and management systems. It has taken decades to reach their current levels of achievement, but it is successfully zoned to cover, for example, limits on boat numbers, where skippers are briefed for three hours on environmental considerations. There is a strong emphasis on depth of quality, and although there is still work to be done, it shows the world what can be accomplished.
