Climate Witness: Tony Fontes, Australia

G’day, my name is Tony Fontes.  I live in Airlie Beach (Whitsundays), Queensland, Australia.  Airlie Beach is a small seaside community located right in the heart of the Great Barrier Reef.  Needless to say, tourism is the main industry of the region. I am a PADI dive instructor specialising in the training of the higher levels of recreational diving such as Divemasters and Instructors.  

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30 years of diving

I have lived and worked as a dive instructor in the Whitsundays for 30 years.  Much of my time is spent underwater on training dives, Marine Park volunteer dives or pleasure dives.  Many of the training dives involve teaching other divers how to best observe the marine environment.  Many of the volunteer dives involve collecting information regarding the health of the marine environment.  I generally dive many of the same sites over and over again.  Through personal observations as well as observations by other local divers I have noted changes to the environment that are most likely climate induced.

Coral bleaching used to be rare

The most notable change has been the increase in coral bleaching each year during the summer months.  In the early 1980’s bleaching was a non-event, rarely, if ever, noted.  By the mid-1990’s, bleaching was seen regularly each summer by myself as well as other divers.  It is pretty amazing to see a large patch of bleached coral.  Bright white or light pastels, actually quite beautiful compared to the normal greens and browns of most corals.  The late 1990s and early 2000 brought the largest bleaching events on record.  In many cases, you could see the bleached corals from the air.  Unlike earlier events, these large bleaching events resulted in significant amounts of coral mortality, the bright white soon covered in brown algae.  This has also led to a noticeable decrease in the diversity of life on these reefs.

I have also noticed a change in weather over the past 30 years.  Although not consistent, the wet seasons have gotten less wet.  In fact, for the first time in memory, we had water restrictions in place for all of 2006 and 2007.  Cyclones along our coastline are fewer but perhaps a bit more intense.

Impact on the tourism and dive industry

Many popular dive/snorkel sites lost their lustre due to the coral bleaching.  The reefs need up to 10 years to fully recover.  However, with more bleaching events occurring each year, one wonders if the reefs will ever recover.  Without the postcard reef scenes, many visitors are disappointed in their reef experience and are not likely to return.  This is tough on a town that depends on tourism.

Extreme weather is more intense

Fewer but more intense summer weather patterns tend to make people complacent when it comes to preparing for the cyclone season.  This year we had an overnight squall that sunk or severely damaged 28 boats moored off Airlie Beach.  Likewise, heavy summer rains caught developers off guard with many sites having no erosion controls in place.  The slogan for the Whitsunday region is “74 Islands Out of the Blue”.  But this year a more appropriate slogan would have been “74 Islands Out of the Brown”.  The coastal waters were brown with mud for nearly 4 weeks after the wet season ended.

Take action

From my personal experience, I can see that climate change, in particular global warming, is already having a significant and destructive impact on the Great Barrier Reef.  Looking at the big picture, as a global community, we need to reduce our CO2 emissions now…not tomorrow, but now!

If the coral reefs of the world are to survive, we cannot afford the predicted 2-3 degree increase in ocean temperature.  But we also need to look at the more local picture and work to reduce all impacts on the Great Barrier Reef.  This would include improving the water quality of the reef.  I feel that Australia needs to lead the way.  After all, we have as much to lose as any country.  Perhaps more.

It is going to be hard to explain to our kids how we lost the Great Barrier Reef.

Tony is a governor with Project AWARE, a nonprofit environmental organisation that encourages divers to take action and protect the environment by taking part in underwater cleanups, coral monitoring or fish surveys.  He is also a member of the OUCH Volunteers (Order of Underwater Coral Heroes).  As an OUCH Volunteer and Project AWARE Governor, he works alongside the Marine Parks on various reef conservation projects.