A new survey of tourists revealed a vast majority of those visiting the Great Barrier Reef are doing so before it dies.  An underwater heatwave is killing coral reefs around the globe, and the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is experiencing its worst bleaching event on record.

A survey published this week in the Journal of Sustainable Tourism found 69 percent of tourists wanted to see the Reef while there's still some of it left. 

"Our research suggests that the ailing health of the Great Barrier Reef has in fact given tourists a new reason to visit, albeit one that doesn't exactly promise a long-term future," authors Annah Piggott-McKellar and Dr. Karen McNamara of the University of Queensland wrote in the Conversation.

Almost half the coral in the northern and center sections have bleached so intensely and for so long that its eventual recovery is in doubt.  It places the GBR on a sad list of places where those who can are engaged in "last chance tourism"; other destinations include Glacier National Park in the northern US state of Montana, the Maldives in the Indian Ocean, and the Galapagos Islands off Ecuador.  Ironically, the rapid influx of last chance tourists places additional strain on these places' environment.

That's giving a temporary boost to local tourism.  The GBR, after all, provides roughly 65,000 jobs and contributes more than AU$5 billion a year to the Australian economy - and those on the receiving end of that windfall aren't always ready to accept that their way of life is coming to an end.  But it's all in danger if the GBR is unable to recover from this year's record bleaching event, caused by man-made global warming.