Coral bleaching is not only heartbreaking, it’s also bad economics

The latest official update on the health of the Great Barrier Reef is heartbreaking.

Released on Friday, the fourth five-yearly Outlook Report prepared by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority says the window of opportunity to secure a positive future for the Reef is “closing rapidly”.

While the overall condition of coral reef habitats had improved from “very poor” to “poor” in the five years to December 2023, the return of mass coral bleaching in early 2024 after the reporting period and the future global temperature increases already locked in made further degradation “inevitable”.

The report talks of “difficult choices and trade-offs”, but we argue that investing in reef protection is in fact excellent economics.

Rather than just thinking about the economic cost of measures to support the Reef, we ought to be also thinking about the economic benefits of those measures, which are almost certainly larger. This makes supporting the Reef a win-win.

A 2017 Deloitte Access Economics study put the annual value added to the economy from the Reef at A$6.4 billion .

Nearly 90% of that benefit ($5.7 billion) came from one industry – tourism (pre-covid). Smaller economic benefits came from fishing ($162 million), recreation ($346 million) and scientific research ($182 million).

But these are only four of about 20 categories of so-called marine ecosystem services linked to marine ecosystems, among them coastal protection, climate regulation, pollution removal, oxygen production and cultural significance.

More than a tourist attraction

The Reef is the largest living structure on Earth. Spanning 2,300 kilometres and covering an area larger than New Zealand, it is home to hundreds of thousands of marine and coral species and one of the most complex ecosystems in the world.

Important in a different way, but not well understood, is its role in providing critical physical protection to coastal cities and towns from increasingly frequent and severe tropical cyclones and storms.

When corals die from bleaching, however, the degraded reefs can be about 50 centimetres deeper than healthy reefs, reducing the protection for low-lying infrastructure .

Worth $21 billion to $56 billion plus

Estimates of the value of the reef as an asset to the country range from A$21 billion to as much as $56 billion .

These estimates typically include the value of the reef to Australians who never visit it, as determined by a method known as contingent valuation . In this type of valuation, people are asked how much they would be willing to pay to protect something. In the case of the reef, it would typically exclude the direct value of it to ecosystem services.

Even at the lower $21 billion value, the Jacobs economics advisory group calculates that an appropriate amount to spend protecting the economic value of the reef (using the same formulas to assess what’s needed to protect other infrastructure) comes to about $830 million per year .

Clearly, using the higher $56 billion valuation would justify a significantly greater investment in protection.

Read more: 'Humanity is failing': official report warns our chance to save the Great Barrier Reef is fast closing

While the government talks of spending billions on the reef, most of the spending announcements are for sums delivered over long time frames . The above economic evidence suggests that spending more would deliver a net benefit to the economy, as well as enormous environmental and heritage benefits.

How much more? Although most Australians believe the reef to be priceless, even incomplete estimates confirm its economic value is very high.

If we’re going to make choices and trade-offs, we need to at least understand the full costs of missing that closing window, of failing to secure a positive future for the Reef.

Looking after the Reef and addressing climate change should not be seen as costs but as investments, win-win investments for nature and the economy.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.