Outlook Report 2024 | Reef Authority

Every five years, we publish an Outlook Report that examines the Great Barrier Reef’s health, pressures, and likely future. We also produce an in brief summary of the report.

The report is required under Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act 1975 (section 54) and aims to provide a regular and reliable means of assessing the Reef’s health and management in an accountable and transparent way.

The Outlook Report 2024 is the fourth comprehensive report in the series and identifies the Great Barrier Reef Region still faces significant pressures ranging in scale from local to global. This edition is available in online and downloadable formats.

The report finds the greatest threat to the Reef is still climate change. The other main threats are associated with coastal development, land-based run-off, and direct human use (such as illegal fishing).

While recent recovery in some components of the ecosystem demonstrates that the Reef retains resilience, its capacity to tolerate and recover is jeopardised by a rapidly changing climate.

Urgent action to limit temperatures to 1.5˚C of warming, or as close as possible, will deliver the best possible future for the Great Barrier Reef and the livelihoods that depend on it. It is also imperative that management actions continue to address compounding threats and everything possible is done to create recovery windows for the Reef.

The Reef 2050 Long-Term Sustainability Plan and the Great Barrier Reef Blueprint for Climate Resilience and Adaptation (Blueprint 2030) outline key management actions being taken to reduce threats to the Reef.

Explore Outlook Report 2024