Oz to take envoys snorkelling to check reef’s status
BRISBANE: Australia will take a group of ambassadors snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef on Thursday in a last-minute effort to keep the World Heritage site off Unesco’s endangered list.
The United Nations cultural agency last month recommended that the world’s largest reef system be downgraded because of damage to the corals, chiefly from the climate crisis.
That threat angered Australia and sparked an intense lobbying campaign ahead of Unesco’s vir- tual meeting starting on Friday, where a vote will be held on downgrading the reef to “world heritage in danger” status.
Ambassadors from the European Union and more than a dozen countries - including members of the World Heritage Committee who could help sway the outcome - will be ferried to Agincourt Reef, a popular site off Australia’s northeast coast, the government’s special reef envoy told AFP.
“They’ll be able to see for themselves the beauty and the diversity of it and the importance of making sure that we look after it. And we look after it well,” Warren Entsch said.
The member of parliament said Australia had made “significant” moves to lower carbon emissions but could not save the reef on its own, urging big-polluting “northern hemisphere” nations to also do more.
Placement on the endangered list is not considered a sanction but it is seen as a dishonour by some countries and there are fears the reef’s appeal to tourists could be impacted.