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

FILE PHOTO: Assorted reef fish swim above a staghorn coral colony as it grows on the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Cairns, Australia October 25, 2019. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

By Sonali Paul and James Redmayne

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.