01/06/2026
We were on ABC Radio National's Life Matters this week alongside the Australian Marine Conservation Society, debating the Queensland Coral Fishery. Worth a listen — but worth some context first.
AMCS is running a campaign built on a number: 190 tonnes of coral "chipped off the reef" every year. It is not true. The actual hard coral take across the last two years was 25 tonnes — 13% of the figure they are asking the public to be outraged about. That is not a rounding error. That is a campaign built on emotion, not fact.
To put 25 tonnes in perspective: five humphead parrotfish on a single reef will eat more coral in a year than the entire Queensland Coral Fishery combined. There are schools of 30 to 40 of them on any given stretch of reef, doing exactly what the reef evolved to handle. Our fishery operates across 350,000 square kilometres of reef system and has a maximum physical footprint of 0.2% of accessible ground. The maths on sustainability is not close.
On aquaculture — we support it, and we always have. But the campaign won't tell you that aquaculture cannot exist without wild collection. Every coral aquaculture operation in the world draws on wild-sourced genetic stock. Beyond that, calling on wild harvesters to become aquaculture operators is a bit like telling Queensland's cattlemen to retrain as pharmacists — both have a biological interest in animals, but they are entirely different skill sets, infrastructure, and industries. You cannot simply move people from one to the other by picking a campaign date.
There is also a question nobody in the AMCS campaign is asking about aquaculture's own environmental footprint. A coral on the reef contributes nothing to rising sea surface temperatures — it is the ultimate carbon-neutral system. Onshore aquaculture runs on electricity around the clock: chillers, pumps, lighting, water treatment. If we are serious about the reef's future, that energy equation belongs in the conversation.
We are also active partners in the Australian Institute of Marine Science's Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program — working on the science of returning heat-tolerant corals to the reef. That is not the picture AMCS is painting.
Radio is a format with real constraints, and a complex, science-based industry will never be fully represented in a single segment. There is a great deal more information about how this fishery actually operates — its management, its science, and its conservation partnerships — that we were not able to get to. We will keep putting it out there.
Each year the Queensland government allows up to 190 tonnes of coral to be harvested and exported from the Great Barrier Reef. Coral fishery members say it is a highly regulated industry which operates within the rules and well under the limit. However, the Australian Marine Conservation Society is....
