Getting Deep and Meaningful
From the oceans' deepest trenches to the shallows of your local beach, every part of the ocean is connected. Protecting what lies beneath means safeguarding the systems that keep our climate stable, our coastlines healthy, and our favourite breaks thriving.
We’re not being rude, the Great Southern Reef is at risk from an army of actual pricks: long-spined sea urchins.
The Great Southern Reef (GSR) stretches more than 8,000 km along Australia’s southern coastline and it's home to vast kelp forests, seagrass meadows, coral reefs, and the waves so many of us love: Margaret River, Bells Beach, Tassie reefs, and the south coast of NSW.
But these ecosystems are now under attack. Long-spined sea urchins are moving south as our oceans warm, chewing through kelp forests and leaving once-thriving reefs barren. The result? Lost habitats, declining abalone and lobster populations, and damage to coastal livelihoods.
It’s an em-urchin-cy.
The Great Southern Reef Foundation and partners have created a $55 million “Centro Business Plan” to restore reef balance, by controlling urchins, restoring kelp, supporting harvest and processing, and managing Sea Country.
We’re backing their call for action to stop these pricks before they strip our reefs bare.
Halt on Deep-Sea Mining
Deep-sea mining is one of the most destructive industries you’ve never seen. It's the extraction of minerals from the seabed thousands of metres below the surface. Sounds like science fiction, but companies are already gearing up to plunder fragile marine ecosystems and Australia’s government has yet to rule it out.
The deep sea plays a massive role in regulating our climate. It locks away carbon, supports marine life, and keeps the ocean in balance. Allowing private companies to mine it for short-term profits could undo systems that have taken millions of years to form. We can’t afford that gamble in the face of a climate crisis.
This is the last truly wild place on Earth, full of life we’ve barely begun to understand. Glowing creatures, ancient corals, and entire ecosystems untouched by humans. We have a choice to protect it, or destroy it, before we even know what we’ve lost.
More than 20 countries have already backed a moratorium on deep-sea mining. It’s time for Australia to do the same. We might spend most of our time on the surface, but make no mistake, what happens deep down affects us all.
Email your minister to tell them Australia has to support a ban on deep-sea mining.