Australia’s under-pressure Great Barrier Reef is an asset worth Aus$56 billion (US$42 billion) and as an ecosystem and economic driver is “too big to fail,” a study said Monday. The World Heritage-listed reef is the largest living structure on Earth and its economic and social value was calculated for the first time in the Deloitte Access Economics report commissioned by the Great Barrier Reef Foundation. Using economic modelling, it said the reef was worth Aus$29 billion to tourism, supporting 64,000 jobs.

Barrier reef 'too big to fail'. (2017, June 27). Manila Standard, p. C3.