Tourists rushing to see Aussie Great Barrier Reef as they be

SYDNEY, Sept 1. (Xinhua) -- An Australian university survey has found that tourists were in a mad rush to visit the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland as they believed it would not be there for long.

University of Queensland researchers Anna Piggott-McKellar and Karen McNamara from the school of Geography, Planning and Environmental Management surveyed 235 tourists in July last year and found that many tourists identified as "seeking a last chance experience" and wanting to travel to the Reef as they believed it would disappear for good in a short amount of time.

Most of the tourist were older women who had travelled great distances to visit the reef after it was believed to have suffered significant coral bleaching earlier this year, NewsCorp reported on Thursday.

However, the researchers noted there has been "extensive attention" over the past decade directed at the threats facing the health and resilience of the natural wonder.

They suggested there was also a paradox that tourists, travelling long distances to see the Reef before it was apparently too late, were contributing to the demise of the ecosystem by adding greenhouse emissions through their air travel.

The Reef has experienced eight mass bleaching events since 1979, triggered by an unusually high sea surface temperatures. These have been linked to climate change.

Tourism Tropical North Queensland chief executive Alex de Waal said the organization's own research suggested a majority of Reef tourists visited the attraction for different reasons.

"We have a million visitors to the Reef that are definitely not visiting it from a perspective of seeing it in its last throes," he said.