Experts have recently warned that the existing plans in place to save the Great Barrier Reef are no longer capable of protecting the site from damage. Thus, it has been suggested that conservation efforts be shifted to something along the lines of a backup plan with the intention of maintaining the reef’s “ecological function” rather than vainly attempting to salvage it.

Scientists have informed an Australian government committee that the present strategy to protect the reef, the Reef 2050 Long-Term Sustainability Plan, is impossible to achieve when considering the mass bleaching events that have recently taken place. This is particularly true as the plan fails to include steps to specifically counter climate change.

The AU$2 billion Reef 2050 plan was initially divulged in March 2015, with the goal of consistently improving the “universal value” of the largest coral reef in the world every decade leading up to 2050.

However, in a meeting last week, scientists warned the advisory committee that supervises the plan that its aim of improving the reef environment is unattainable following the consecutive and repetitive bleaching events which took place in 2016 and 2017—a horrific sequence which constituted the direst coral die-off ever recorded.

The most recent figures regarding the coral death due to the bleaching events even higher than predicted, being that an even more significant coral decline is anticipated to occur over the course of 2017, according to Russell Reichelt, who is the Chairman of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.

The previously projected 22 percent death of shallow water corals has now escalated to 29 percent, according to the latest figures.

In light of this, experts claim that modifying the plan so that it is working towards a more realistic intention of sustaining ecological function would be more beneficial while admitting that the general health of the reef will wane over time, base on statements given by Michael Slezak for The Guardian.

“The concept of ‘maintaining ecological function’ refers to the balance of ecological processes necessary for the reef ecosystem as a whole to persist, but perhaps in a different form,” detailed a spokesperson for Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, who continued on to add that “noting the composition and structure may differ from what is currently seen today.”

This message comes across as being relatively ambiguous, and even defeatist, but unless more serious and well thought-out efforts are devised to alter the Reef 2050 plan get enacted soon—including plans to directly address climate change in the strategy, as scientists have advocated for in the past—it may actually be the outcome of the situation.

The warnings come after a report released by the Reef 2050 Plan Independent Expert Panel earlier on this month, which asserted that cutting emissions of greenhouse gases should be a major focus in protecting the reef, as well as efforts to boost coral resilience and reef ecosystems.

“[I]n our lifetime and on our watch, substantial areas of the Great Barrier Reef and the surrounding ecosystems are experiencing major long-term damage which may be irreversible unless action is taken now,” the panel communicates in their written work.

The panel continues on in their publication to state that: “The planet has changed in a way that science informs us is unprecedented in human history. While that in itself may be cause for action, the extraordinary rapidity of the change we now observe makes action even more urgent.”

Ian Chubb, who is the Panel Chairman and former Chief Scientist of Australia, opines that the Reef 2050 Plan requires a considerable renovation to directly deal with the elephant in the room: warming oceans, which are the major reason for coral bleaching.

“We can’t be passive bystanders in this. We’re the custodians of the reef and its ecosystem for the world,” he asserted in his interview with Adam Morton at The Sydney Morning Herald.

“We don’t say toss out the plan and start from scratch–action on water quality, sediment, and fertilizer remain important–but events mean it needs to be shifted,” emphasized Chubb.

Featured Image via Flickr/lockthegate