Parts of Australia's Great Barrier Reef show highest coral cover in 36 years

FILE PHOTO: Coral reefs can be seen from above on the Great Barrier Reef, located off the coast of Queensland, near the town of Rockhampton, in Australia, November 15, 2018. REUTERS/David Gray

MELBOURNE/SYDNEY (Reuters) -Two-thirds of Australia's Great Barrier Reef showed the largest amount of coral cover in 36 years, but the reef remains vulnerable to increasingly frequent mass bleaching, an official long-term monitoring programme reported on Thursday.

The recovery in the central and northern stretches of the UNESCO world heritage-listed reef contrasted with the southern region, where there was a loss of coral cover due to crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks, the Australian Institute of Marine Sciences (AIMS) said in its annual report.