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00:02The Great Barrier Reef is the largest coral reef on our planet.
00:16It's one of the seven recognized wonders of the natural world.
00:26The reef itself is the place that most people explore, but there's much, much more.
00:37The coral reef is actually a very small part of this underwater world, as little as 7%.
00:48The remaining 93% of the marine park encompasses a variety of habitats, each one remarkable in its own way.
00:59And beyond the marine park, there are even more environments that are important to the reef.
01:09Some close to shore.
01:15Others inland.
01:18Altogether, there are more than a hundred different types of habitat, in and around the barrier reef.
01:26Each with its own distinctive plants and animals.
01:33There are creatures that you would expect to see on a reef.
01:38And others that you would not.
01:57All the places in which these animals live are linked to a vast, deep water lagoon, which lies between the
02:06coast of mainland Australia and the outer reef.
02:13These habitats interconnect, and all are vital to the well-being of the Great Barrier Reef.
02:22This is the little known story of one of the most complex and spectacular ecosystems on Earth.
02:39The Great Barrier Reef is over 2,000 kilometres long, which means the lagoon that lies between the outer reef
02:46and the Australian mainland is vast.
02:49An area one and a half times the size of the British Isles.
02:59Pick a spot anywhere in the lagoon and you'll probably find sand.
03:06As about two-thirds of the sea floor here is a shifting underwater desert.
03:13It looks barren, but there is life here. It's just that you don't often see it.
03:27Garden eels.
03:29And an unlikely alliance.
03:33A fish and a shrimp that share a burrow.
03:38In a world where most food is out of sight, it takes a predator with special talents to find it.
03:47And this is that predator, the ray.
03:53The ray's special skill is to find living things under the sand.
03:57And the largest species to do this here is the stingray.
04:08It finds its prey by detecting the minute electric fields produced by mussels when they contract, including the heart muscles.
04:17Something no animal can ever switch off.
04:21But they do have to swim directly over a beating heart to know that it's there.
04:34By sucking and blowing, the stingray excavates its target deep under the soft sand.
04:55Many rays feeding together produce a series of furrows on the sea floor.
05:00And all that puffing and blowing can attract unwelcome attention.
05:04The hunter can just as easily become the hunting.
05:15This is a stingray's worst nightmare.
05:21A great hammerhead shark.
05:26It has electro-receptors too.
05:29They're spread across the underside of its very broad head, which it sweeps back and forth searching for prey.
05:38The stingray has a formidable weapon, a venomous barb.
05:42But one hammerhead was found with 96 barbs in its body, and seemed none the worst.
05:52The stingray's first line of defence is to remain very still, in the hope that the shark doesn't find it.
06:18The commotion warns the other rays to escape, but it attracts other sharks, like jackals at a kill.
06:24The air force will still be seen.
06:26The wind will still be able to be seen.
06:44The water is about 9-10 years old in the world.
06:48but few people are there to witness them. It seems surprising that the lagoon
06:55remains a relatively unexplored environment but if you're a diver why
06:59would you explore the lagoon? It's relatively hostile particularly when you
07:03compare it to the crystal-clear reefs that are just a short boat ride away.
07:11Yet there's plenty of life down here. Prawns, squid and all manner of fish
07:17species are caught by local fishermen. Diving here is not easy, but it's well
07:26worth the effort.
07:36Dotted across this vast underwater desert, a ghostly oasis where amazing life forms
07:42have taken hold.
07:58It's a strange, almost alien world and if the place seems strange, many of the creatures living
08:13here are even stranger.
08:43Things are probably you know we do.
08:45Look at the Leavex View.
08:47It seems like.
08:58The orthonous seazer of 새 wiece protected sailors only
08:59letting people come and think of the forest common land.
09:10These oasis are created not by plants butواomars or Draw Norr rares zeroes all
09:13plants, but by animals. They're corals, but not the normal reef-building ones.
09:23Unlike their hard coral cousins, they don't have a chalky skeleton, and they thrive at depths
09:29where the light is less intense, capturing food from the water currents with eight feathery tentacles.
09:38These soft coral gardens are important because baby fish hide amongst them. Nearly half of all
09:45the adult fish on the reef proper grow up in the nurseries in the lagoon.
09:52They arrive as larvae swept in from the ocean by the tide.
09:59Then, as the tiny fish grow, they hop from one refuge to the next,
10:04across the floor of the lagoon to reach their final destination back on the barrier reef itself.
10:11As long as they hide amongst the corals and seaweed,
10:15they're relatively safe. The danger comes when they break cover.
10:22This baby Queensland grouper may just be a few centimetres long now, but one day he'll weigh
10:28half a tonne. That's if he lives that long. He can't stay hiding forever.
10:47It's dangers like this camouflaged stonefish that force all life down here to find somewhere to hide.
10:57The floor of the lagoon is relatively flat and featureless. It's like the plains of a desert.
11:05But every now and then you get a little oasis of life. And this sponge here has been heavily
11:13colonised by these feather stars. And it provides a vital bit of cover
11:20for juvenile fish and their journey both to the reef and their journey to adulthood.
11:29And that journey includes stopovers at almost anything that sticks out above the sand,
11:35like this tube-dwelling sea anemone.
11:44A carpet anemone becomes a welcoming roadhouse.
11:49And even the spines of a sea urchin will do the trick.
11:56A surprising refuge is this highly venomous Stokes sea snake.
12:02It's picked up some hitchhikers, baby trevally, and become a mobile nursery.
12:14Wherever it goes, they go.
12:31It's picked up some hitchhikers, baby trevally, and then it's picked up some hitchhikers.
12:34With hiding places at a premium, fish will go to incredible lengths to hide down here.
12:41And none more so than this.
12:48The pearlfish is vulnerable out in the open, so while it's not feeding, it must conceal itself.
12:55But it has a peculiar taste in hiding places.
13:00This is a sea cucumber.
13:05Its body is basically a tube.
13:08It sucks in sand at one end, extracts anything edible, and passes waste out of the other.
13:14Just what the pearlfish has been looking for.
13:19But not the mouth end.
13:22It's attracted to the odour of the other end.
13:43Sea cucumbers are repulsive to most predators, so the pearlfish is safe inside.
13:49It'll stay there until it's time to feed again.
13:55It doesn't harm its host, but the bad news for sea cucumbers is that pearlfish are happy to share their
14:02temporary home with others.
14:09It seems there's plenty of room for all.
14:20The barrier reef we see today is comparatively young.
14:23It began to form during the last ice age, when sea levels were 120 metres lower than they are today.
14:35When the ice sheets began to melt, the growth of corals kept pace with the rising seas,
14:41blocking off the waters of the lagoon.
14:46And during that one great event, another important habitat was created.
14:54Stretching away behind me to the horizon is the great expanse of the lagoon.
14:58And yet a mere 10,000 years ago, that's a blink of an eye in geological time.
15:03The beach I'm standing on would have been the slope of a hill overlooking a plain covered in eucalyptus forest.
15:08But the sea level rose, the plain was inundated, and the hill became an island.
15:20These continental islands, as they're known, are essentially pieces of mainland cut off by the rising water.
15:31There are 600 of them scattered about the lagoon.
15:45There are 600 of them scattered about the island.
15:45Any land animals cut off from the mainland had to adapt or perish.
15:52And on this island, one species has done so well, it's positively flourished.
16:01This is a yellow spotted monitor lizard, or goanna if you're from this neck of the woods.
16:06And it's a very successful and abundant animal on this island.
16:09And it made a real impression on Captain Cook when he came here in 1770.
16:13To the degree that when he sat down to think about a name for the island.
16:17Not a terribly long process, I don't think.
16:20He thought, it's an island, and it's covered in lizards.
16:24Got it.
16:25Lizard Island.
16:26Which is rather clever, I think.
16:28Do you see what he did there?
16:46When hunting, the goanna is alert to any movement.
16:52If the grasshopper remains still, it has a chance of escaping the goanna's attention.
16:59In the back legs, the goanna's face is a good idea.
17:29trick few other lizards can perform, but it's effective to get to those just out of reach places.
17:45The guana's sense of smell is as important as its sight,
17:49its forked tongue helps to detect food from a distance. By comparing the strength of a
17:55smell reaching each of the two prongs, it can pinpoint where it comes from.
18:04A rotting fish is irresistible.
18:22They're usually solitary, but here on Lizard Island they'll tolerate others as long as there's plenty
18:28of food to go round.
18:44Small guanas give way to larger ones.
18:57Foraging a variety of foods has helped the guanas build a large population on Lizard Island,
19:02but there's another important factor, and that's how they react to me.
19:19There are people living on the island, and the guanas are not afraid of them. In fact, quite the opposite.
19:35He's followed the scent of my barbecue. Over the last few years, these animals have adapted their
19:41behaviour to get used to the presence of man, and use man as a potential food source.
19:48This ability to learn and change as the environment around you changes is a very neat evolutionary trick.
19:56He's used to hunting invertebrates. He's changed his behaviour to home in on this appallingly cooked
20:02barbecued sausage. And in the modern world where man has encroached on virtually every habitat,
20:08it's a very good way of ensuring your survival.
20:15And adaptability has enabled a reptile with a more chilling interest in people to thrive in these waters.
20:31It's the saltwater crocodile, better known locally as the salty.
20:38It's the world's largest reptile, and it's common on the lagoon's islands because it's at home in salt
20:45water and fresh. Sometimes swimming far out to sea. So it's not unusual to find one hauled out on an
21:00island beach.
21:04Salties though, start life with more modest dimensions.
21:12This one-year-old is no more than 30 centimetres long, and it's hiding amongst the plants at the edge
21:18of the sea.
21:21Hunting at the junction between air and water means there's a good choice of food, like mudskippers.
21:59He'll have to improve as a hunter if he's going to grow into a six-metre giant.
22:07And he'd better watch his back. There's a bird about that could easily take a baby crocodile.
22:16This is a white-bellied seagull. It's the second largest eagle in Australia.
22:20And it's fantastic to be this close. This is the closest I've ever been to any eagle anywhere in the
22:25world.
22:29They can be seen just about anywhere around the lagoon. You're as likely to spot one amongst the
22:35trees as you are over the reef, so an island is a perfect base.
22:49They may be specialised to catch fish, but like the goannas and the crocodiles, they're adaptable too.
22:57This is a range of items taken from beneath a killing tree of a white-bellied seagull on a
23:03continental island. The killing tree is where the seagull will actually take apart its member and eat
23:09its prey. And it's a very good representation of what these animals eat, and indeed their strategy
23:15for hunting. You've got a parrot fish here, which is a deeper swimming fish. You've got things like these
23:21long toms, which actually swim right on the surface. You've even got birds here. Most remarkable of all,
23:27you've got these freshwater turtles that don't exist on the island. They're on the mainland,
23:32so the eagle has flown to the mainland, taken these turtles and brought them back to the nest.
23:37And it's an excellent representation of the strategy of these animals. If a food item is short,
23:43locally, in short supply on the island, they'll actually seek alternatives. And this generalist
23:49approach makes them very, very successful in the limited environment that an island represents.
23:56Even so, fish make up half of its diet. To catch them, it uses huge talons.
24:07They're also weapons it can use to have a crack at these. Fruit bats.
24:18Spectacle fruit bats are big. They have a wingspan of about a metre. And they roost in island forests
24:25as well as those on the mainland.
24:39They have to cling on tight. But that's the least of a mother's worries.
24:54They have to cling on tight. But that's the least of a mother's worries.
24:56Grabbing a bat hanging at its roost site is not an option for a large bird.
25:03For the eagle to have any chance, the bats need to be airborne.
25:23These are little red fruit bats. During the day, they gather in roosts of up to a million,
25:29so they're not hard to find.
25:47An eagle's appearance creates panic.
26:00One, two, three.
26:06To be in the first set, they're not in the round.
26:07They're not in this.
26:09Another one.
26:18It's just a moment, which is a monster.
26:20A.
26:20This is a monster.
26:20One, two, three.
26:21Two, three, four wood bats.
26:21A.
26:24Two, three, three, four wins.
26:25One, two, three.
26:42Bats are agile flyers, but the eagle's powerful claws gave it the edge.
26:51The continental islands are magnets for wildlife, providing shelter, lookout points and hunting grounds.
26:58They're oases for life, but they're not the only ones.
27:08Below the surface of the lagoon is an island of a very different kind.
27:17A shipwreck.
27:22This is the SS Yongala.
27:34She sank during a cyclone in 1911, and now sits on the seabed at a depth of 30 metres.
27:45122 people lost their lives.
27:57But out of this human tragedy has come an opportunity.
28:09One hundred years underwater has created something very, very special.
28:34The Yongala is regarded by many as the greatest wildlife wreck on Earth.
28:46The wreck provides shelter on the featureless plain for more than 120 fish species.
28:52This concentration of life sustained by food swept in by the exceptionally strong currents.
29:06The living's so good, many of the young fish stay here for their entire lives, rather than move to the
29:12outer reef when they grow up.
29:37There are sea turtles down here too.
29:39This one's a loggerhead.
29:48And the wreck's a favourite hangout for another species.
29:55This is a Holtzville turtle, and he's here to feed on the soft coral that coats the wreck.
30:03The soft corals are one of the main reasons that all this life is attracted to the Yongala.
30:20Almost every available space on its once smooth hull is covered with them.
30:37The soft corals are a refuge for millions of small fish, but they must dart out from time to time
30:43to feed on the plankton in the current.
30:47And wherever small fish gather, it's not long before something bigger turns up to eat them.
30:56It's a grouper.
31:01This is a Queensland grouper.
31:03It's the largest bony fish that lives on the Great Barrier Reef.
31:12Queensland groupers are real giants.
31:15This Yongala resident is known as the VW, because he's the same size as the car.
31:22His mouth's so big he's quite capable of swallowing sharks and rays whole.
31:33But another resident has an even deadlier bite.
31:39Sea snakes have more potent venom than many of their land living relatives, and they put it to good use.
31:51The olive sea snake doesn't really look as though it's hunting.
31:54But when its small head disappears into a hole, it can trap and paralyse any fish hiding there.
32:03It's unusual for so many predators to be swimming so close to each other, but there's so much to eat
32:10here.
32:11Most of the action is on top of the wreck, where the strongest currents sweep in the most food.
32:17The waters within the immediate vicinity of the wreck is an area of incredibly intense and violent predatory activity.
32:28For the small fish that call the Yongala their home, to venture into this blue water is a huge gamble.
32:36But they've got to do it to seek out food.
32:39And if they get it wrong and go too far, the difference between life and death on this wreck can
32:48be a matter of millimetres or seconds.
32:50office and over the watershed, there are a lot of small animals.
33:07The last two eras have been w ramifications.
33:10The last five eras have been in for the last while.
33:10That was a lot of times.
33:11The last two eras is a grung-wide battle.
33:18The last two eras have been in the world as well.
33:36The amount of marine life to be found in the hundred metres of the wreck of the Yongala
33:41is truly staggering.
33:43Arguably, it's a greater concentration than on any spot on the barrier reef itself.
33:58In contrast to the middle, the landward edge of the lagoon is relatively shallow.
34:06Here, bright sunlight can reach all the way to the sandy bottom,
34:11where conditions are right for plants to grow.
34:17This is not seaweed, but a marine relative of the water lily, known as seagrass.
34:24It grows and flowers in vast meadows in clear water, around islands and along the shore of
34:31the mainland.
34:35And it supports a creature that ancient mariners once mistook for mermaids.
34:44Gathering in herds of a hundred or more are dugongs or sea cows.
34:49They're relatives of elephants.
35:04Each one can weigh nearly half a tonne and munch through 40 kilos of seagrass a day.
35:31Dugongs were once abundant, but they've had a difficult relationship with people.
35:38Nowadays, they're trapped accidentally in fishing nets and shark protection barriers,
35:43and traditionally aboriginal hunters targeted them because they taste good, like prime beef.
35:54And recovery of a population is slow.
35:57A single baby is born every three to seven years.
36:03And this baby dugong may not be old enough to breed until she's 17 years old.
36:16A combination of all these factors means the population in the southern part of the reef
36:21has halved in the last decade.
36:24Now there are just 11,000 left in the entire Great Barrier Reef region.
36:29Yet there are still more dugongs in Australian waters than any other place on earth.
36:44Dugongs are not the only animals to feed on seagrass.
36:49Young green turtles like it too.
37:05He's after the most tender shoots.
37:11And this is his exclusive patch.
37:25He's very choosy about what he likes and what he doesn't.
37:36Like your lawn, seagrass needs to be constantly cut short for healthy growth.
37:41So he's actually farming his own little plot that he'll tend for several months before moving on.
37:54Seagrass meadows are also nurseries for baby fish, like these domino damselfish.
38:05They won't stay here forever.
38:09When they're bigger, they won't be able to hide amongst the slender stems.
38:13And they'll look for a better hiding place, maybe one even closer to land.
38:25Where the sea meets the coast, salt water meets fresh water from rivers and streams.
38:35But one doesn't suddenly become the other.
38:41The water mixes slowly, creating a world unlike either, but connected to both.
38:52It's here that you'll find a special group of plants.
39:05Fringing the coast of the mainland is a habitat that has a profound impact on the ecosystem of the reef.
39:11They're plants that have cracked a neat evolutionary trick.
39:15They can live in brackish environments, which is a combination of salt and fresh water.
39:20They're the mangroves.
39:24They grow where no other trees are able to.
39:31Twice a day, the tide floods their roots with salt water.
39:46At the same time, water from rivers flows through the mangroves.
39:51And their lattice of roots acts like a giant tea strainer.
39:55Slowing it down so that any sediments washed off the land can settle out.
40:06Bacteria break down the trapped sediment and other organic material.
40:11Helping create tons and tons of sticky mud.
40:18A whole new home for wildlife.
40:28In a perfect world, mud should be thick, glutinous and as rich as dark chocolate.
40:33And it should also stink to high heaven.
40:36But this is extremely important stuff to the Great Barrier Reef.
40:41One teaspoonful of this mud contains 10 million bacteria.
40:51All those bacteria are potential food.
40:54And although there aren't many species that eat mud directly, those that do operate in large numbers.
41:06Legions of creatures perform the unglamorous but crucial task of breaking down the gloop.
41:12Legions of creatures of creatures of plants.
41:24Mudwhelks and fiddler crabs both eat the mud.
41:26and their waste is the vital product that spawns an entire food chain.
41:37Once it's in the water, clouds of shrimp devour it.
41:45The nutrients that started in the mud are now swimming around in small, easy-to-catch parcels.
42:04All of this food makes the mangrove a great place for fish, small residents, as well as
42:12youngsters that will one day move out to the barrier reef.
42:21Reef species like these rabbitfish may look big, but they're still only one-third of their
42:28adult size.
42:31These snappers also have some growing up to do before they leave.
42:40And these young trevally will grow up one day and be major predators on the outer reef.
42:48The mangroves, seagrass meadows and the soft coral oases are vital nurseries for so many
42:55fish on the reef, and they all provide two things, food and shelter.
43:04The complexity of the mangrove root system makes it a perfect haven for small and juvenile fish.
43:11The reason is the lattice work of the roots as they cross means it's very difficult for
43:16large predators to manoeuvre and actually get at the smaller fish.
43:25But predators like these young black-tit reef sharks hide here too.
43:30They hunt at the edge of the mangroves, but they can't get deep into the tangle of roots.
43:42So the young fish are safe, for now.
43:47So it's a great environment for the small fish to actually grow up in, to get big and strong,
43:52before they make the big move out to the open sea and the reef beyond.
44:01But when they leave the safety of the mangroves, they must cross that sandy desert and the many hazards
44:07waiting for them in the lagoon.
44:22This is a mantis shrimp.
44:36From his neatly kept burrow, he surveys the world with the most complex visual system known to science.
44:53He's about the size of a man's forearm.
45:02And he's got quite a reach.
45:18Even if a young fish avoids the dangers on the seabed, there are plenty more predators floating above.
45:27Patrolling these inshore waters is probably the most dangerous animal in the lagoon.
45:34The box jellyfish, whose stinging tentacles are quite capable of killing a person.
45:43This creature is much more than a passive drifter.
45:47It can move as fast as an Olympic swimmer.
45:50And it has 24 eyes, each complete with a lens that can form a detailed image.
46:02It uses its tentacles like a trawl net.
46:05When a fish makes contact, thousands of microscopic stinging capsules explode into the prey's body,
46:12flooding it with a paralysing venom.
46:24The fish is killed quickly, and then hauled into the mouth on the underside of the bell.
46:36All of the habitats we've seen so far have an obvious connection to the lagoon.
46:41But there's one place that couldn't be more different from the underwater world,
46:46that's critically important to the vigour of the Great Barrier Reef ecosystem.
46:56It's the Tropical Rainforest.
47:00The Queensland Rainforest is the oldest in the world.
47:03It's older than the Congo and even the Amazon.
47:06And this is one of the most impressive trees in it.
47:09This giant fig has strangled its original host and now dominates this immediate environment.
47:14And it's an ecosystem in its own right.
47:16But you might be asking yourself, what has this tree got in common with the reef?
47:21But in fact it's directly linked.
47:24The rainforest all around me and indeed swamps and mangroves are critical for the health of the reef.
47:33These huge tracks of rainforest close to the Queensland coast
47:37are essential because they regulate the flow of water and the sediment it contains.
47:44That's important because there's an awful lot of water here.
48:21That's important because there's an awful lot of water here.
48:29Hot, humid tropical air gives rise to vast amounts of rainfall.
48:34It pours for at least 120 days a year and as much as 60 centimetres can fall in a single
48:41day.
48:45It's one of the wettest places on earth.
49:02Left unchecked by the forest, the water would wash out sediments and smother marine life.
49:07But the waterways flowing off the rainforest are relatively clear and many are spectacular.
49:39If you are...
50:06When sediments are released slowly,
50:08the nutrients in them help sustain life in the lagoon so everything flourishes.
50:21Where conditions are just right, corals manage to grow right next to the coast.
50:34Here, pristine tropical rainforest grows right down to the water's edge, a stone's throw from a coral reef.
50:48It's a place where two worlds meet and animals from the reef and the rainforest can be found right next
50:55to each other.
51:03These footprints belong to one of the biggest land animals in Australia.
51:15The cassowary.
51:19A flightless bird that's almost as tall as a person.
51:25Its claws wouldn't look out of place on a dinosaur.
51:35And its kick is so violent that the cassowary is said to be the world's most dangerous bird.
51:55A parent is particularly dangerous when rearing a chick.
52:11In fact, the cassowary is shy and is rarely seen in the wild.
52:16But it's a key animal here.
52:19It feeds on the fruits of rainforest trees and shrubs.
52:23It's one of the few animals that spread their seeds.
52:29The seeds of many forest trees can't germinate without animals like the cassowary.
52:37As the forest is directly linked to the reef by regulating sediments entering the lagoon,
52:44the cassowary contributes to the health of the reef itself.
52:50But there are now less than 2,000 living here and they're becoming rarer all the time.
53:00Before European settlers arrived, much of the coast here was covered in forest.
53:05And a lot of that was jungle just like this.
53:07This is a vibrant ecosystem in its own right.
53:10It's full of reptiles and birds as you can hear all around me.
53:14But today, things have changed significantly.
53:19Much of the coastline that abuts the Great Barrier Reef, 80% of it in fact has been cleared for
53:24agriculture.
53:25And much of that has been totally cleared for sugar cane.
53:28Obviously this has a dramatic impact on the terrestrial environment,
53:32but it also has a significant effect on the reef itself.
53:38And it's not only crops.
53:41Cattle ranches, fish farms, six large coastal cities,
53:46and many holiday resorts along the coast all have an impact on the reef system.
53:58Without the natural vegetation controlling the movement of water and the sediment it carries,
54:04heavy rain now washes millions of tonnes of silt,
54:08often laced with damaging fertilisers and pesticides, straight into the lagoon.
54:16Sediment plumes can be so extensive they sometimes spread all the way to the outer reef.
54:24In the seagrass meadows, the fine silt shrouds the light-dependent plants,
54:30and fertilisers feed algal blooms that choke the life from them.
54:36When the meadows die, the turtles, dugongs and baby fish that depend on them die too.
54:43Near the shore, the water can be so murky that less light reaches the corals,
54:49so most fringing reefs have also disappeared.
54:59All of these habitats are interdependent.
55:03If you ruin one, it can have an impact on many others.
55:09And that includes the outer reef itself.
55:14To look after all these habitats, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park sits at the heart of a network of
55:22protected areas,
55:23all interconnected and covering a vast area.
55:39After all, the reef is an inspiration to people all over the world.
55:46It attracts one and a half million visitors each year, who come to see the largest coral reef on Earth.
56:06Together with divers, yachtsmen and anglers, they inject seven billion dollars a year into the local economy.
56:18But the value to Australia is even greater than that.
56:25Towns and cities along much of the Queensland coast are not washed into the Pacific Ocean because the reef protects
56:33them.
56:36It means the barrier reef is so much more than just a coral reef.
56:50And there are vast tracks of rain forests, mangrove swamps, seagrass meadows and soft coral oases in a deep water
57:00lagoon.
57:01It's truly an extraordinary place.
57:06And the reef's influence goes far beyond Australian waters.
57:12It's vital to wildlife from many other parts of the world.
57:18Wave after wave of voyages arrive here from across the ocean.
57:23From the islands of the South Pacific.
57:28From the Asian mainland.
57:34And from as far away as the icy seas of Antarctica.
57:51These wildlife visitors create some of the most impressive natural spectacles on the Great Barrier Reef.
58:04And all this is the subject of the next programme.
58:24Exploring more of the Jewels of Wales with Yolo here on BBC HD at seven o'clock tomorrow.
58:30And next this evening, we're going down into Bungley Go.
58:35Bungley Go.
58:35Bungley Go.
58:40Bungley Go.
58:40Bungley Go.
58:44Bungley Go.
58:46Bungley Go.
58:49Bungley Go.
58:49Bungley Go.
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