Great Barrier Reef ought to be on heritage ‘danger’ list – UN report
Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is ‘‘in danger’’ of losing the unique environmental values that justify its World Heritage status.
This is according to scientists reporting to Unesco who warn that damage from climate change and agricultural runoff in North Queensland is risking the future of the jewel in the crown of the world’s coral ecosystems.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) controls World Heritage listings, and in June last year it issued a draft ruling that the reef should be added to the list of sites that are in danger of losing their World Heritage status.
The mission report, based on a visit to the reef by scientists in March, said that while action on climate change had been boosted since the election of the Albanese government, Australia does ‘‘not provide any clear pathway to avoid significant negative impact’’ from climate change.
The report urged the government to its goals to align with the Paris target of limiting global warming to 1.5C.
The March visit coincided with a mass coral bleaching event caused by a marine heatwave, which occurred for the first time in a typically cool La Nina period.
The Albanese government has upgraded Australia’s emissions reduction target to 43% by 2030, a significant boost from the former Morrison government’s goal of 26% by 2030.
But this is consistent with 2C or more of warming.
Australia would need to cut its emissions by about 70% to act consistently with the global action needed to keep warming under 1.5C.
In the past six years the reef has copped four mass coral bleaching events and the risks to its survival are pressing.
A report by the Australian Academy of Sciences said if the world warmed by 2C, only 1% of corals would survive.
The Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) has listed
the outlook for the reef’s health as ‘‘very poor’’ and said in August that the increased frequency of mass coral bleaching events was ‘‘uncharted territory’’ for the reef following the fourth mass bleaching in seven years.
‘‘In our 36 years of monitoring the condition of the Great Barrier
Reef we have not seen bleaching events so close together,’’ AIMS chief scientist Paul Hardisty said.
Pollution caused by fertiliser and sediment runoff is another key threat to the reef. It harms coral and reduces the ecosystem’s ability to recover from damage, such as bleaching events.
The mission report said that although state and federal governments were undertaking significant programmes to restore coastal habitat and reduce agricultural runoff, the reef ‘‘continues to face many threats from land-based activities impacting water quality’’.