The Great Barrier Reef is worth $95 billion and contributes $9 billion to the nation annually, but the precious asset will be lost without urgent action, economic research warns.
And a separate study shows rampant deforestation in Queensland is stripping hundreds of thousands of hectares of native bushland.
A Deloitte Access Economics report released on Monday found the reef supports 77,000 full-time jobs, making it the equivalent of Australia's fifth-largest employer.
National polling commissioned by the Great Barrier Reef Foundation shows 98 per cent of Australians believe losing the reef would be a national tragedy, with nearly three-quarters describing such a loss as "significant" or "irreplaceable".
The Deloitte findings and national polling "present a powerful case", foundation managing director Anna Marsden said.
"Safeguarding the reef is vital not only to the people and communities that rely on its survival, but to the overwhelming majority of Australians who want it to endure for generations," she said.
"The reef is not gone — but time is running out.
"We have the tools, the knowledge and the choice to protect it. We just need the will."
Earlier in October, the Global Tipping Points report warned warm water coral reefs faced a long-term decline without rapid and unlikely cuts to greenhouse gases.
Another report released on Monday found almost 700,000 hectares of native bushland were cleared in the four years after the Queensland government strengthened its vegetation laws in 2018.
The Australian Marine Conservation Society said the federal government had an opportunity to stop this clearing as part of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act reforms slated to be introduced to parliament in the next two weeks.
The society is calling on the federal and Queensland governments to close deforestation loopholes through the nature law reforms, to remove or constrain Section 43B of the Act and ensure that national standards protect the reef from pollution and climate change.
Australia was a deforestation hotspot and Queensland was the epicentre, the society's reef campaign manager Lissa Schindler said.
"If Australia wants to keep the Reef off the World Heritage in Danger list, then the government must act and close the loopholes that are driving deforestation," Dr Schindler said.
More than 100 Australian scientists and researchers have also called on the government to address deforestation, warning the impacts under the current ct "compound the damage caused by repeated mass bleaching events driven by climate change" to the reef.
"Without meaningful reform, deforestation will continue to drive massive biodiversity loss," the scientists warned in a letter to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.