Oz plan inadequate to save Great Reef

In a bid to keep the Great Barrier Reef from being reclassified by the United Nations as “in danger,” the Australian government has unveiled a 35-year plan to manage risks to the reef, one of the natural wonders of the world. But conservationists warned that the plan does not go far enough. “The plan does not deliver bold, concrete actions that scientists have told us we need to turn around the future of the reef,” said Louise Matthiesson, a reef campaigner with the group WWF-Australia. “Over all, it is not business as usual, but it is close enough to it.”  WWF-Australia contributed to the report, but Matthiesson said that only some of the group’s views had been adopted.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation listed the reef as a World Heritage site in 1981 but has warned that it might put the reef on the List of World Heritage in Danger in 2015. Of Unesco’s 1,007 cultural and natural World Heritage properties, just 46 are considered “in danger,” several of them in war-torn countries like Syria.

The Australian government acknowledged in the report that the reef, which stretches along most of the coastline of the state of Queensland and is about the size of Italy or Japan, was under increasing threat from climate change, poor water quality and the impact of coastal development that includes the controversial expansion of a major coal-loading port at Abbot Point. A government report in 2012 had found that the reef had lost over half its coral cover in 27 years.

Reef 2050
The Australian environment minister, Greg Hunt, and Queensland’s environment and heritage protection minister, Andrew Powell, said the report issued Monday, Reef 2050 Long-Term Sustainability Plan, provided a framework for managing the reef that included monitoring turtle, coral trout and dugong populations and breeding, improving water quality and setting targets for substantial reductions in farm chemicals leaching into the waters of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

“The plan sets out targets and actions to help safeguard the reef against threats such as poor water quality and crown-of-thorns starfish; improve its resilience to challenges like storms and cyclones; and conserve species such as turtles and dugongs while supporting existing sustainable activities including tourism, agriculture, shipping, fishing and more,” Hunt said in a statement.

But WWF-Australia said that the report had failed to set high-enough targets and allocate funds to help farmers cut fertiliser runoff and that the government had failed to minimise dredging and dumping in the World Heritage area, which stretches from the city of Gladstone to the tip of northern Queensland.

Conservationists had been highly critical of  Hunt’s decision to allow the expansion of the Abbot Point port last year and the dumping of three million cubic meters of silt into reef waters. The government faced legal action from conservationists and an outcry from scientists concerned that sediment plumes from the so-called dredge spoil would damage reef coral. The port has been in operation for nearly 30 years and is the major dock for coal-loading from the inland Galilee Basin. 

“Initially, you think that dumping on land is a better option than dumping in the sea near the reef,” said Selina Ward, a coral biologist at the University of Queensland. “But if the sediment is dumped near waterways or wetlands, that’s a big problem, because Abbot Point has been a port for almost 30 years, and there are chemicals in there we don’t want on sensitive wetlands or flowing into the sea,” Ward said.
Further mining in the Galilee Basin — which contains vast deposits of coal that could attract more than 28 billion Australian dollars  of  investment and create almost 30,000 jobs during construction of the coal mines and their operation, according to the Queensland government — would further “damage the environment through massive emissions,” Ward said.

Matthiesson of WWF-Australia said that Unesco officials had seen many reports from Australia on the state of the reef. They would welcome greater cooperation between government agencies as outlined in the report, she said. “To take it off the danger list they will want proof those actions will be implemented and are adequate to turn around the future of the Great Barrier Reef,” she said.