Annual Report 1995-1996

Abstract

When the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority was established in 1975, the Reef was an area known to be of great natural beauty, scientific wonder and remoteness, accessible to only a relative few.

Although the Great Barrier Reef was well known through the media by the 1970s, the level of use of the Reef and the adjacent coastal area over the last two decades has increased dramatically. This is evident in the rapid expansion of international tourism, increasing coastal residential populations, and a technologically based fishing industry, as well as major agricultural and grazing industries.