“With increasing land area being converted to agricultural production, particularly sugarcane, inputs of pesticides into the Great Barrier Reef area have increased with time… The quantities of the insecticide chlorpyrifos, and herbicides atrazine, diuron and 2,4-D applied in the Herbert catchment have increased in the last 15 years…The fate of these pesticides in river and Reef ecosystems is largely unknown (Johnson & Ebert 2000).
Source: p145/6 Pesticide Use in Australia. A Review Undertaken by the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering.