The last year has really been an incredible experience and very possibly the year where I finally found some purpose and direction in life.

The Best Job in the World has allowed me to explore the underwater magic of the unique Great Barrier Reef; something that has been exciting, challenging and educational.

I’m now always looking for my next opportunity to get wet and go down with my wetsuit on, ready to watch, listen and take in as much as possible from the environment which we spend so little time observing and learning from during our lives.

Even though I completed nearly 50 dives during the six months as caretaker of the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef, I spent just under a day breathing through SCUBA gear!

A total of 33 hours underwater did however give me a huge understanding of the beautiful, complex and sensitive eco-systems that make up coral reefs around the world, they are ultimately living organisms and the Great Barrier Reef is the largest in the world at over 2,300km in length.

They are also highly sensitive to changes in the environment much like any other living thing.

You look after your pets when you have them; you love them, feed them, nurture them and care for them in anyway you can and that’s exactly what we need to do when it comes to looking after coral reefs.

There have been conflicting reports across the worldwide media over the past few years about global warming, man’s influence on the planet, glacial decline, rising sea levels and the impact on coral reefs.

But as just one guy where do I stand on this important issue, who do I believe and what conclusions can I take away from any of it?

It shouldn’t matter whether we are or whether we aren’t directly affecting the planet.

The point is that we should all try and do something more than we are right now to lessen our impact on the planet - I mean we only have one chance and if we destroy it for future generations, what sort of generation have we been and what kind of legacy have we left?

We’ll certainly have left our mark on planet earth and it won't have been a good one.

As I travel through various cities in the world telling the masses about my Queensland adventures and see different cultures and people making different commitments to their environmental future, I feel lucky to be in a position to have a more global view on the situation and to be able to observe what’s going on today.

People make commitments and pledges, and in the public eye try to stick to them by reducing carbon levels over five, 10 or 20 years (why should it even take that long?), by decreasing their dependency on fossil fuels, by introducing more ‘green’ electricity power generation, by reducing landfill…the list is endless!