Last year, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) was ~this close~ to putting the Great Barrier Reef on its list of world heritage sites considered to be "in danger".

A draft decision by UNSECO earlier in 2015 noted that the overall outlook for the reef was "poor, has worsened since 2009 and is expected to further deteriorate in the future".

To be listed as "in danger" would have been a disaster for Queensland's $5.4 billion tourism industry. So the federal Coalition government and Queensland Labor government poured a lot of time and money into making sure it didn't happen, including spending more than $400,000 on lobbying efforts.

Thanks to those efforts and some increased funding from government, UNESCO decided against putting the reef on the list. But the federal government will have to report back to UNESCO later this year, and again in 2019, to assure that it is doing everything it can to keep the reef alive.

So no, there is no such thing as a "watch list", but Hunt's own government did lobby UNESCO to avoid an embarrassing "in danger" listing for the Great Barrier Reef.