FAQ

The film is about how a scientific phenomenon - degradation in the water quality of the Great Barrier Reef - is primarily due to political issues such as poor funding of environmental protection, poor implementation of legislation, large-scale development & sediment dredging along the coast and land runoff. An example of a collapse of governance is the Gladstone Port Expansion Project, which resulted in an environmental disaster when the bund wall containing dredge spoils failed, contaminating the Gladstone harbor in 2011. After this event, local fishermen reported an unprecedented number of dead fish, dugongs, turtles and dolphins. So, in a nutshell, a fight on the land is leading to the urgently poor outcomes for the Reef. The main voices come from the top coral and marine research scientists in Australia, along with locals, activists, politicians and indigenous leaders, who are all concerned about the poor outlook of this, one of the seven wonders of the natural world. Our story focuses on the fight that has been happening on land around governance of the reef's health.

The Great Barrier Reef is a unique natural structure on the planet and is World Heritage listed. By revealing the recent history of poor management of the sediment dredging project in the Gladstone harbor, we are asking a question of significance for generations to come - what will happen if this disaster is repeated? Not only repeated - but prospectively repeated on a much larger scale. Port expansion projects have been approved for much larger volumes of sediment dredging in other major ports along the Reef. The latest Reef health check shows the overall outlook is "poor" - and worsening. According to the Outlook Report produced by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, climate change is still the greatest threat to the reef. Other threats include land runoff and sediment dredging. Despite the fact leading Australian scientists warn the reef is in 'grave danger' and highlight the need for better protection the budget for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority has been wound back in past successive years. Higher levels of awareness and close cooperation between the government and marine research scientists, activists, politicians and Indigenous leaders is urgently needed to save the world's biggest natural wonder.

As a geochemist, I have conducted a large number of contamination investigations in Australia and overseas. My PhD research on the impacts of the Chernobyl disaster allows me to assess environmental risks and draw parallels between large scale environmental disasters around the world. Pushing the nuclear reactor's capabilities to its limits led to the 'man- made' Chernobyl disaster in 1986. Thousands of square miles of pristine environment around the Chernobyl nuclear power station became a wasteland. Estimates of the number of animal deaths directly related to the accident vary. The World Health Organization estimates the figure at 9,000 while the environmental group Greenpeace predicts an eventual death toll of 93,000. Bad environmental management will also be to blame for future human-made events affecting the Reef. Given my specialist knowledge and experience, I am obliged to the Australian public and to the environmentally conscious people globally to expose existing environmental risks.

We hope our audiences will walk away from the film knowing the Reef's health is our mutual responsibility. If we're powerless to stop the rising ocean temperatures leading to coral bleaching; and if we can't do a thing about averting coral damaging hurricanes, let's do what we can to save the reef by joining the growing environmental movement to save the Reef. This movement calls for putting the Reef's long-term value before short-term profits, as well as developing and applying world's best methods to assess cumulative impacts. We hope the film will inspire the reef tourists and tour operators to promote a Reef-saving lifestyle. Some examples of this are facilities that run on renewable energy and waste reduction. Above all else, we believe the power to save the Rest is with ordinary people of the world.

Our audience is the growing number of conscientious citizens and environmentally minded activists around the world who yearn to understand the environmental consequences of their governments' decisions. We'll reach our target audience through specialised film screening such as the upcoming Brisbane launch, which is supported by the Marine Conservation Society. We'll also use our rapidly growing social media accounts to spread the word about screenings and to raise awareness about issues concerning the Reef. During our visits to the Reef and the making of the film, we connected with scientists and community leaders whose enthusiasm for the film we'll harness in our content production.

We have partnerships with the following leading Australian scientists (who are also our interviewees in the documentary): Jon Brodie, a Professorial Research Fellow at James Cook University in Townsville, Queensland Australia and Terry Hugh, a Distinguished Professor of Marine Biology at the same university. The feature film also includes our interview with Dr Liam Wagner, a Lecturer in Economics at Griffith University, Queensland Australia, whose interests are in the areas of Energy, Environmental and Natural Resource Economics.

Recent reports say half the Reef is already dead, and the other half in dire emergency need of help. The Reef seems to us to be the most urgent environmental issue of all at the moment.