Fringing coral reefs around inshore islands of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park have high biodiversity and support high levels of recreational use. Systematic long term monitoring is fundamental to tracking the temporal dynamics of fish communities, detecting impacts and recovery from disturbance events, and assessing the effects no-take marine reserves. Long term monitoring at over 100 sites across four island locations from 1998 to 2019 has documented significant reductions in coral cover, habitat complexity, and fish abundance and diversity. Continued monitoring, with the addition of four new island locations, since mid-2022 has reinforced that fish abundance, species richness and assemblage composition vary among island locations and are related to the cover of structurally complex corals and turf algae. Each island location has its own history of disturbance and recovery, with cyclones, flooding and coral bleaching events affecting different locations at different times. Piscivore biomass is consistently higher in no-take marine reserves compared to reefs open to fishing, however there is no evidence that marine reserves protect inshore coral reef habitats. With disturbances such as cyclones, floods and warming events predicted to increase in frequency and intensity due to climate change, the continuation of monitoring is more crucial than ever.