**** 9International Herald Tribune | ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT | Fr i d ay , O c to b e r 1 0, 2008

T he Great Barrier Reef is so huge that itis visible from outer space, but theonly way to really experience it is under

water. The reef is one of the richest ecosys-tems in the world, a unique environmentwhere divers enjoy close-up looks at an im-mense diversity of undersea life.

Part of what makes the Great BarrierReef different from other reef ecosystemsis its sheer size. The reef contains theworld’s largest collection of coral reefs, with400 types of coral, 1,500 species of fishand from 4,000 to 8,000 types of mollusc,including the giant clam. It holds great sci-entific interest as the habitat of the dugong(sea cow) and large green turtle, which arethreatened with extinction. In the reef,sharks and stingrays live alongside whalesand dolphins. The reef is also home to1,500 sponges and 500 kinds of seaweed.

Water quality is best at the reef’s outerreaches, making these areas the mostfavored diving sites. Local tour operators,

such as the Cairns Diving Center, recom-mend August through January for best visib-ility. Autumn (April-June) is generally dry, andthe north’s tropical climate warms the waterto 75 to 85 degrees Fahrenheit (about 24 to30 degrees Celsius). In winter, water may becold at some southern parts of the reef.

Divers have several options for a homebase, including Cairns and Townsville; thesecities offer the easiest access to divingspots and plenty of sleep-aboard tours andcharters. Divers might also want to stay onone of the nearby islands, such as Whit-sunday Island. Cairns is the biggest city of-fering reef access; visitors can reach divingareas in 90 minutes. Cairns also has theclosest international airport.

From Townsville, it takes two-and-one-half hours to drive to the Great Barrier Reef;diving tours of an historic shipwreck, the S.S.Yongala, leave from here. The official site forAustralian Travel and Tourism Australia(www.australia.com) has a directory that in-

cludes reputable and ecologically sensitivediving tours.

Farther out, the Ribbon Reefs are idealfor novices and advanced divers throughoutthe year. The Planetary Coral Reef Founda-tion, a nonprofit group, recommends divingat Steve’s Bommie. ‘‘Fish here are used todivers, showing little concern at close quar-ters,’’ states the PCRF. ‘‘There are alwaysschools of jacks, tuna and barracuda;schools of unicornfish, goatfish, snappers,bigeye and red-toothed triggerfish wereseen on all our dives.’’

Divers interested in whales should plantheir trip for winter (June-August) or spring(September-November). Minke and hump-back whales spend winter near the Whit-sunday Islands and can still be found in thespring. They migrate through the waters ofthe Ribbon Reefs. Minke whales, operatorssay, are playful and curious, and often staywith diving vessels for hours, so chances forclose encounters are high.

Phil Hutchens, an instructor at BarracudaDivers in Alabama who went diving in theRibbon Reefs, says: ‘‘I’ve been a diver for 28years and an instructor for much of thattime, and I never had an experience like wehad on this boat — everything from snorkel-ing with Minke whales to night dives.’’

Wherever they choose to dive, visitorsshould be careful to avoid damaging thereef, and they should be aware that takingcoral as a souvenir is illegal. �

Divers need to master time. Theymust stay within the limits of theiroxygen supply and monitor thecorrect levels of decompressionwhen resurfacing. All this makes awatch essential. But a diver's watchmust be readable under water,absolutely fail-safe and watertight.It has taken decades to develop thetechnology needed to meet theserequirements. Jaeger-LeCoultrecreated the first watertight watchin 1939. Twenty years later, itdeveloped the Memovox Deep Sea,the first diving watch with an alarm,which alerted the diver that it wastime to resurface.

Creating a dozen models fordivers has prompted the companyto take advantage of the latest inunderwater technology. To launch2007's new Master CompressorDiving-watch series, the Swiss

watch manufacture turned to TotalMarine Technology, an Australianbuilder of customized diving robotsthat go to depths humans cannotreach. These remotely operatedvehicles (ROVs), often designed forthe offshore drilling or engineeringindustries, are built for heavy-dutywork in deep-sea water. To provethe Master Compressor Diving waswatertight to 1,000 meters (3,280feet), the ROV, called Jaeger-LeCoultre-1, plunged to 1,080meters off Hawaii and Indonesiawith a Master Compressor Divingsecured to its side. At 1,000meters, the watch's convexsapphire glass, a mere 3.6millimeters (0.14 inch) thick, mustwithstand pressure of 900kilograms, the weight of a small car.The watch returned to the surfacewithout the slightest damage.

Staff of the Great Barrier Reef MarinePark Authority often share manymanagement lessons they’ve learnedwith other World Heritage sites. Forexample, Jon Day, one of theGbrmpa’s directors, discussedmanagement approaches and issuesrelevant to the Island of Coiba at aworkshop in Panama. ‘‘The MarinePark has been around for 30 years,’’Day says, ‘‘and what we’ve learnedhas been useful for others. Specificissues vary depending on the site, butmany principles are the same. Thequality of water coming from land is abig issue facing many marine areas.Managers need to think outside theirWorld Heritage area, as much candepend on the management of thesurrounding area as well.’’Visit http://whc.unesco.org

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SPOTLIGHT | Climate change and coral reefs

The Great Barrier Reef: Seeking a balance between conservation and development

DIVING | Pleasure and prudence

Visible from outer space, reef is best seen by divers

Why time and technology are essential for divers

Sites share expertise

The Great Barrier Reef contains the world’slargest collection of coral reefs.

Global warming has led to the bleaching and deathof corals in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef,

the largest of Unesco’s 878 World Heritage sites.What is being done to increase the

resilience of the reef and help it withstandthe impact of climate change?

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A significant threat to coral reefs —and to Australia’s Great Barrier Reefbecause it is the world’s largest — is

climate change. Global warming is causingocean temperatures to rise. When water ex-ceeds seasonal maximums by 1 or 2 de-grees Celsius (1.8 to 3.6 degrees Fahren-heit) for six to eight weeks, corals ‘‘bleach,’’or turn pale.

Rising temperatures cause corals tolose microscopic algae contained in their tis-sue. The dazzling huesof living corals comefrom the colors of thesealgae, which carry outphotosynthesis andprovide nutrients thathelp corals build reef structures. When hightemperatures persist for more than eightweeks, corals begin to die.

Mass bleaching occurred in the sum-mers of 1998 (the warmest in a century),2002 and 2006. Says Kishore Rao, deputydirector of Unesco’s World Heritage Centre:‘‘It’s definitely an issue in the Great BarrierReef. In 1998, about 30 percent of the reefwas bleached, but the big bleaching eventoccurred in 2002, when about 60 percent ofthe reef surveyed was reportedlybleached.’’

The 2002 bleaching was the largest onrecord. But more recently, in the summer of2006, bleaching affected the southern sec-tion of the Great Barrier Reef. According to

the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority(Gbrmpa), inshore reefs were badly affectedby the unusually warm water that persistedin the area for more than two months. Con-ditions were especially severe in the KeppelIslands, where more than 80 percent of cor-als bleached and 40 percent died. Fortu-nately, the marine park authority says, therest of the Great Barrier Reef suffered littlebleaching that year.

The Gbrmpa warns, however, that projec-tions of future watertemperatures suggestbleaching could becomean annual event. It com-piled a ‘‘Vulnerability As-sessment’’ on the Great

Barrier Reef and climate change, whichstates: ‘‘Even under the most optimistic cli-mate-change scenarios, the Great BarrierReef is destined for significant change overthis century; under pessimistic scenarios,catastrophic impacts are possible. It is inev-itable that climate change will continue tocause degradation of the Great Barrier Reefover coming decades.’’

A report by the United Nations Panel onClimate Change warns that the Great BarrierReef could be ‘‘functionally extinct’’ by 2030.The challenge is to make sure this doesn’thappen.

Corals are beautiful, living animals thatare enjoyed by divers, but they are also vitalto marine ecosystems. Their death — and

the resulting disappearance of reefs —would mean the loss of countless marine in-vertebrates and fish that rely on reefs forsurvival. Their disappearance would alsomean falling income from tourism, fishingand discovery of new medicines.

Declared a World Heritage Site in 1981,the Great Barrier Reef stretches across2,600 kilometers (1,616 miles) and con-tains thousands of individual reefs, makingit the largest of Unesco’s 878 World Herit-age sites and the world’s biggest structuremade by living organisms.

Unesco’s World Heritage Centre helpsmonitor this vast expanse, but as Rao ex-plains: ‘‘You can’t do much locally to dealwith global warming. What you can do is re-duce stress on the reefs — what we call thenonclimatic stress factors. In other words,increase resilience of reefs to withstandglobal warming pressures.’’ That means,Rao adds, ensuring that other burdens, liketourism, are well controlled.

Tourism in the Great Barrier Reef is a bil-lion-dollar industry, and particular attentionis paid to minimizing its potentially adverseeffects. Among the dangers of excessivetourism are pollution and vessel waste, aswell as physical damage to the reef from an-chors, snorkelers, divers, reef walkers, fish-ermen and collectors. Today, tourism in theGreat Barrier Reef is well regulated, andboth water quality and coastal developmentare closely monitored.

Unesco cannot — and does not desire to— keep people off the Great Barrier Reef.Its goal is to provide for preservation, but italso seeks to promote the wise use, under-standing and enjoyment of the reef amongits 1.8 million annual visitors.

The Gbrmpa works with the Australiangovernment and tourism associations to de-velop codes of conduct, managementplans, educational programs and incentives(such as ecotourism certification). Today,tourists cannot get to the Great Barrier Reefwithout a licensed tour operator. TheGbrmpa is involved in extensive training pro-grams, instructing operators on how to edu-cate tourists on best practices.

‘‘We have seen some very positive devel-opments in the marine tourism industry,’’points out Dr. Russell Reichelt, chairman ofthe Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.‘‘Some operators now offer climate-neutral

reef trips to reduce the carbon emissions oftheir businesses.’’

There are ongoing links between theGreat Barrier Reef and Unesco’s World Her-itage Centre. The Gbrmpa is the local sitemanager, and it works with the internationalorganization to help minimize the impact ofclimate change by monitoring water quality,marine pollution, fishing, tourism andcoastal development. Together, for ex-ample, they seek ways to reduce pesticideson land from flowing into the waters of theGreat Barrier Reef.

Says Rao: ‘‘The site demonstrates bothconservation and development. They mayseem to be opposing objectives, but can bebalanced. If there is one place where youcan teach how to best manage a marineWorld Heritage site, Great Barrier Reefwould be the one. It’s not just protected. It’sthere for people to appreciate and use.’’ �

The Great Barrier Reefcould be ‘functionally

extinct’ by 2030

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MASTER COMPRESSOR DIVING PRO GEOGRAPHICWater-resistant to 300 metres (30 atm).

Manufacture Jaeger-LeCoultre,Vallée de Joux, Switzerland, since 1833.www.jaeger-lecoultre.com/dive