The long-term health projections for the Great Barrier Reef remain mixed, with reefs between Proserpine and Cape York – a distance of about 1600 km up the Queensland coast by car – losing nearly 30 per cent of coral cover in 2024. Despite the finding, researchers have said there are positive signs of reef resilience*.
The Australian Institute of Marine Science’s annual coral reef condition report revealed the Great Barrier Reef suffered the single greatest year of coral cover decline ever recorded.
Cyclone Jasper, crown of thorn starfish and an extreme marine heatwave decimated fast growing but heat sensitive hard corals in the 2025.
Cyclone Jasper, crown of thorn starfish* outbreaks and an extreme marine heatwave saw hard corals flattened, with the heat-sensitive Acropora species hard hit.
The average hard coral cover in reefs between Proserpine and Cooktown declined from 33.2 per cent to 28.6 per cent in 2024 in a 13.9 per cent decline.
Reefs north of Cooktown saw coral decline from 39.8 per cent coverage in 2024 to 30 per cent in 2025.
But the dramatic drop comes off the back of nearly a decade of unprecedented* coral growth that now leaves Great Barrier Reef coral cover sitting higher than long-term averages.
AIMS researcher Dr Daniela Ceccarelli said disturbances in 2018 meant hearty, pioneering Acropora species exploded.
“From about 2018 until just the winter of 2023/24, we had a period where there weren’t many big disturbances … the fast growing corals (Acropora) started to recolonise* the reef, ” she said.
“These are the ones that were driving this very steep recovery but unfortunately, they’re also really vulnerable*,” she said.
“They get broken first during storms, because they’re a little bit delicate … they are some of the most vulnerable corals to heat stress, and they’re also the preferred food of the crown of thorns starfish.”
Between 1985 and 2018, coral cover shifted by a few per cent each year as longer living, slow-growing corals kept numbers stable, while fast-growing species grew rapidly and declined frequently. But since many heartier species were wiped out, Acropora corals now make up a greater portion of the reef.
A diver inspects coral at the Great Barrier Reef in Far North Queensland on September 23, 2024.
The annual report, released last week, surveyed more than 124 reefs, with estimates gathered from “manta-tows,” where scientists were dragged behind a boat to gauge how much of the bottom was covered by hard coral species.
Dr Ceccarelli said unlike other parts of the world, the GBR had proven it can bounce back.
“ Just last year, we had the highest coral cover ever recorded,” she said.
“The Reef still has the resilience to be able to bounce … there’s also lots of potential for recovery.”
This bleached and dead coral was around Lizard Island on the Great Barrier Reef, located 270km north of the city of Cairns.
But Ms Ceccarelli said like a rejuvenating* forest, reefs need time and fewer disturbances to build back.
“Like a bushfire it burns a bunch of hills to the ground, then the first things you see spring up are grasses and bushes … but it’s not finished growing back into the full biodiversity* of the forest. Coral reefs are exactly the same,” she said.
“They’re (Acropora corals) important not just for the coral cover, but also for lots of things that live on the reef. They are really important for habitat* and for providing homes and food.
“But for recovery to be complete, you need ten or 15 years of no disturbances, so that the sturdier, slower growing corals also have time to grow back.”
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