Queensland coral harvesting is big business. Some scientists are calling for a 'rethink'
Australia's Great Barrier Reef is being literally chipped away at to build private aquariums. Now conservationists are raising the alarm.
It's a balmy morning in the Far North Queensland suburb of Portsmith.
A fishing boat docks on the wharf after a four-day trip out on one of the seven natural wonders of the world, Australia's jewel, the Great Barrier Reef.
There's precious cargo aboard. But it's not fish.
These brightly-coloured hunks of coral are destined for Israel, Hong Kong and Los Angeles. They came ashore with six crates like this, and will likely fetch about $5,000 for the lot.
Despite the perilous state of the Great Barrier Reef, the government allows private companies to harvest coral from it.
There are limits, and the penalties for fishermen who take too much are severe.
But as the reef is literally chipped away at to build private aquariums around the world, concerns are growing that the practice could be adding one stress too many to an ecosystem scientists say is on the brink of collapse.
Researchers have even said coral harvesting — which targets the most colourful varieties — might be draining some coral colonies of colour.
It doesn't help that one of Australia's biggest coral harvesters is currently facing criminal prosecution for illegally harvesting coral from protected areas of the Great Barrier Reef.
Australia's coral harvest industry has even attracted bans from the European Union and the United Kingdom over concerns about sustainability.
But none of this has slowed the world's appetite for Australia's coral.
'Stewards' vs scientists
Some environmental organisations, such as the Australian Marine Conservation Society, want to end coral harvesting on the reef altogether.
"This isn't a fishery that is solving problems with food security or something. This is the global aquarium trade," campaign manager Simon Miller says.
Coral scientist Dr Morgan Pratchett says the industry has flown under the radar because of its negligible size.
But with increasing threats to the reef, he says the widespread support the industry has enjoyed is unlikely to continue.
"We're now saying, 'Well, hang on, given the state of the reef, maybe we should rethink this industry'," he says.
Unlike the Australian Marine Conservation Society, he's not calling for a total ban. He does however want the industry to provide more data to prove it's sustainable.
But Lyle Squire Jr, a third-generation coral collector and owner of the biggest coral harvesting operation on the Great Barrier Reef, Cairns Marine, doesn't agree.
"We are stewards," he says. "We're not out there to destroy the reef."
He believes the industry has minimal impact on the reef.
"I could not, in good faith, look myself in the mirror knowing that my grandfather's [coral harvesting] licenses are something that I'm abusing and not providing an outcome at the end for my children's children to be able to go out and enjoy the environment," he says.
Coral is protected globally under CITES, or the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species — an international agreement that aims to stop threatened plants and animals from going extinct.
Corals are the most traded CITES-listed marine species and, according to data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the third-most confiscated animal globally.
Australia exports about $25 million worth of coral a year, according to the Queensland government, making it one of the world's biggest players.
Most of those exports end up in the United States.
On top of all that international trade, there is also a domestic market.
Inside the 'reefing' business
It's that market aquarist Andre Caval supplies from his online coral business, run from his home in Sydney.
All of Andre's stock is harvested directly from wild colonies growing on the Great Barrier Reef.
He says his customers are like any other pet owner.
"It's basically a piece of the ocean … in their home," he says.
"It can be an incredible piece of artwork.
"You can switch the telly off, and sit back and watch the fish and the little critters and the corals and the way they grow."
But the hobby isn't always so relaxing. "Reefing", as it's known, is competitive.
The hobby boasts its very own influencers on YouTube, who make a living from their ever-expanding home reefs.
Aside from being sold in classic fish shops and online, small pieces of coral (or "frags") grown by collectors are also sold at rave-like trade shows known as "frag swaps", with names such as Reefapalooza, Aquashella and Fragarama.
"Frag swaps" and aquarium trade shows are extremely popular among coral enthusiasts.
These coral frags often have ecstasy-like street names — bubbles, candy canes, cherry blossoms, frogspawn and so on.
Prices range anywhere from $30 for a tiny "frag" to $1,000 for a larger "mother" colony.
"My all-time favourite would have to be the gold torches," Andre says.
But Andre senses trouble for the industry.
Because of concerns about harvesting wild coral from the reef, there's a push for the industry to move towards aquaculture: coral grown in tanks.
It's long been touted by wild coral harvesters as the solution for their industry.
The problem is that growing coral is tricky.
Even Australia's top reef scientists are yet to crack the secrets to coral reproduction on a large scale.
For a species like Acropora, which grows quite quickly, aquaculture may work just fine, but it'll be bon voyage to those much-loved "scollies" or "torches".
But with optimism, some companies are pressing ahead.
One of those is a coral "farm" located in Cairns, run by a trio of aquarists: Rick Stella, Christian Garcia, and Shane "Danger" Coleman.
When Rick and Christian first got into the coral business they were harvesting from the Great Barrier Reef.
According to Rick, they saw the "writing on the wall" and believed it was no longer sustainable to harvest wild corals.
It took them two years to transition to an aquaculture business. And even now, there are times where they have no choice but to buy coral from harvesters.
Rick believes the industry's future is aquaculture.
"It might not be as much money as we're making now, but if we want an industry, if we want to be in the trade at all, then we have to do something," he says.
Exports face choppy waters
Australia's international coral trade is also in trouble with fears it's not sustainable.
In 2022, both the EU and the UK issued bans on corals from Queensland.
The UK has since loosened those restrictions, but the EU remains stalwart.
At present, 20 Australian coral species are banned from being imported into the EU.
The EU says the reason for the restrictions is "insufficient evidence" the trade is sustainable.
Mr Squire insists the EU doesn't understand how the wild harvesting industry in Australia operates.
Since 2016 the Great Barrier Reef has experienced five mass bleaching events, which occur when the corals become so stressed they turn white.
Despite these increasingly common, devastating events, coral harvests have actually increased since 2018.
So much so, that Dr Pratchett felt he had to sound the alarm, calling for new limits on how much can be harvested back in 2021.
Despite those limits being introduced, a 2024 assessment of the industry by Dr Pratchett found it was still struggling to meet sustainability goals in several harvested areas.
One of the concerns raised by Dr Pratchett was that coral species only found on the Great Barrier Reef could be overharvested.
Popular "reefer" YouTubers have posted videos about how they like corals from Australia for their uniqueness, with a species known as "scollies" a favourite.
According to a 2024 assessment of the fishery by the federal environment department, scollies have been overharvested by 17 per cent — equivalent to 183 kilograms of coral.
"We're increasingly convinced this coral does not occur outside of a very small area of the Great Barrier Reef … so it's really vulnerable to overharvesting," Dr Pratchett says.
"Those harvest levels are at unprecedented levels."
While conducting the research for the 2024 assessment, Dr Pratchett also noticed fewer colourful, smaller-sized corals throughout reefs subject to fishing when compared to unharvested reefs.
"We don't know what genetic attributes they're selecting for when they select these really bright, ultra, master-grade corals," he says.
"If they happen, for example, to be the ones that have the greatest thermal resistance, then we might be leaving that remaining population really compromised to the other fishery-independent threats."
Dr Pratchett believes stricter harvest limits may be warranted in some parts of the reef.
He also says the 2021 limits were based on historical catch data that could be outdated, and may not necessarily be sustainable.
"You need much more information to effectively justify the ongoing harvest, let alone increased harvests," he says.
He is calling on the industry to reinvest some of its profits into collecting data to demonstrate its sustainability.
But Mr Squire says coral harvesters cannot afford to do that.
"It would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to be able to collect the level of detail in data in order to be able to say categorically whether or not the fishery is sustainable," he says.
"Industry does not and will never make enough money to be able to support such research."
Mr Squire is also sceptical of aspects of Dr Pratchett's 2024 report. He believes the research was conducted at too few sites and says visibility was limited during the dives.
"They can't say with any level of certainty that it isn't sustainable. They can't say with a level of confidence that it is sustainable," he says.
Even when the reef is in the midst of a bleaching event, the industry is allowed to continue harvesting coral.
The industry has a voluntary action plan for coral bleaching and says it's careful to minimise its impact on the reef. But the federal government has previously said "voluntary efforts" are "no longer considered adequate".
Discussions between the industry and authorities are ongoing, with harvesters hoping to avoid a total lock-out.
Coral 'cowboys'
The quotas set out for the Queensland Coral Fishery are strict. Going over quota or fishing in an area you shouldn't be will result in legal consequences.
In 2016, the first-ever prosecution for illegal coral harvesting on the Great Barrier Reef since new the rezoning plan (2003), occurred in Gladstone against divers working for coral harvester Oz Reef Connections.
The pair of divers had been caught fishing for coral in a green zone where fishing was not permitted, and were fined.
Since then, there have been 23 prosecutions relating to 10 cases of illegal collection of coral in the marine park, almost all of those involving commercial coral harvesters, according to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.
The most recent case of alleged illegal coral harvesting involves coral collector Jardini, including its director Jason Coe, who currently holds five licences on the Great Barrier Reef.
The harvesters are charged with fishing for coral in an area where the practice is prohibited. Mr Coe is yet to enter a plea.
Dr Pratchett says cases of illegal harvesting put the social licence of the industry on the line.
"All the discussions we're having about whether you should allow fishing full stop is further tipped towards, 'These guys are cowboys and we should get rid of them' any time there's any breach of compliance," he says.
Mr Squire says that sort of behaviour is "disgraceful".
"This gives us an incredibly bad name, particularly when we're putting forward these voluntary initiatives."
The future of the industry
When Dr Pratchett saw that the Queensland Coral Fishery had been approved by the federal environment department in 2024 for a further three years, he was surprised.
"You can see that there's evidence of fisheries impacts in this report," Dr Pratchett says.
But the government disagreed. The federal environment department and minister said the way coral harvesters were operating were not likely to threaten any relevant ecosystem, "including (but not limited to) any habitat or biodiversity".
Dr Pratchett says the only way to recover the vulnerable species identified in his assessment was to stop harvesting them at affected reefs.
The federal environment department has requested a review of the at-risk coral species to be submitted in August. The Queensland Department of Primary Industries (DPI) says it has begun this review and will incorporate the findings from Dr Pratchett's recent assessment.
Mr Squire believes current limits on those species are sufficient and the harvesters will look after the reef.
"Industry, on its own, goes about trying to limit the take in those sites," he says.
The DPI says an updated ecological risk assessment and harvest strategy will be completed in 2026.
For now, the world's aquarists can still treat themselves to a piece of the Great Barrier Reef right in their living room.
For Dr Pratchett, this presents an irony.
"There's a fundamental imperative for both sides of government to try and restore the reef," he says.
"There's no point restoring the reef if you're also simultaneously taking more corals out than you can possibly ever put back."
Mr Squire says that's irrelevant, because restoration doesn’t happen in areas where they harvest.
"That question [of restoring the reef] is also making the assumption that the reef is at such a point that it needs restoration," he says.
"At the moment, our reef is still in pretty good shape."
Credits
- Reporter: Angela Heathcote
- Photography: Brendan Esposito
- Digital production and editing: Leonie Thorne
- Editing: Michael Slezak and Heidi Davoren