A Great Barrier Reef Economic Zone: A Strategy for Regional Resilience

Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is a national icon, World Heritage Area, and under sustained threat from climate change and terrestrial land-use. It is also a complex $56B asset generating 64K jobs and contributing $6.4B annually to Australia’s economy (2016 figures). Current management predominately treats the GBR as a closed environmental system with emphasis on ecological restoration through predominately government funding. There is a paradox in how climate adaptation strategies are designed. We acknowledge climate is a dynamic, complex, and emergent system, yet we anchor strategies to models that, by necessity, simplify complexity into linear or probabilistic scenarios. This leads to two key issues: a fixation on predictive certainty; and overlooking systemic interactions and Tipping Points. Adaptation must be systemic, not siloed, with policy, finance, infrastructure and cultural adaptation interconnected. We propose that a clear alignment of investment with collaborative regional resilience through a GBR Economic Zone will address this paradox and improve resilience of the regions sustained by and who care for the GBR. More inclusive than standard linear mechanistic thinking, this circular approach will leverage the GBR international status to attract continuing investment in regional resilience and sustainable growth and improve GBR management outcomes.