ABSTRACT
The Great Barrier Reef (the Reef) is the largest system of corals and associated life forms anywhere in the world. It is encompassed in a Marine Park within the Great Barrier Reef Region (Fig. 1) covering an area of about 350,000 sq km on the Australian continental shelf. The Reef stretches for almost 2000 km along the northeastern coast of Queensland in a complex maze of approximately 2900 individual reefs, ranging in area from less than one hectare to more than 100 sq km. In the north, the Reef is narrow and its eastern edge is marked by a series of narrow “ribbon” reefs but in southern areas it broadens out and presents a vast wilderness of “patch” reefs [1].
