The United Nations heritage body UNESCO and the Australian government got into a tiff over placing the Great Barrier Reef on the list of world heritage sites that are “in danger.” Pointing to the threats the world’s biggest coral reef system faces from climate change, the UNESCO committee recommended that the listing is necessary to address the issue. But the Australian governments diplomatic effort won enough support to override the UN body’s recommendations. The final motion, passed by the UNESCO in July agreed not to place the Great Barrier Reef on the in danger list. The committee, however, asked Australia to deliver an updated report on the state of the reef in February 2022.
The Great Barrier Reef is the largest living marine organism in the world. It was inscribed as a World Heritage site 40 years ago and remains one of the world’s most iconic natural treasures. ‘The Reef’, as it is called in Australia, meets all four natural heritage criteria. These include its extraordinary natural beauty and globally significant biodiversity. The Reef contains vast mangrove forests, seagrass meadows, coral reefs, whales, dolphins, turtles, sharks and dugongs to name just a few species groups.
Australians love the Reef and many people around the world dream of visiting Australia to see it for themselves. Prior to COVID, the Reef generated over AU$6 billion a year to the Australian economy and supported 64,000 jobs. Seventy Indigenous Traditional Owner groups have looked after the Reef for thousands of years. One quarter of the world’s marine species depend on coral reefs for at least part of their life cycle. The Great Barrier Reef has enormous social, economic, cultural, and ecological value.
In 2019, an Australian government report concluded that the outlook for the Great Barrier Reef had deteriorated from poor to very poor. The report, which is based on the best scientific data, found that climate change is the Reef’s biggest threat.
The Reef has already experienced five coral bleaching events, the most severe and widespread being in the last five years. In 2016 and 2017, about 50 percent of the corals died. While there has been some coral regeneration, the mix of species is shifting in favor of fast growing “weedy” species that are the most vulnerable to future coral bleaching.
The Reef is also threatened by local pressures, in particular agricultural runoff from intensive sugarcane farming and extensive grazing of livestock in the adjacent catchment. Unsustainable commercial fishing and coastal development add to the pressures.
The 2021 recommendations regarding the Great Barrier Reef were the first time UNESCO has recommended a World Heritage site be inscribed on the List of World Heritage in Danger predominantly due to climate change. UNESCO referred to 1.5 °C as a critical threshold, the first time UNESCO has highlighted the long-term goal of the Paris Agreement in its recommendations for a specific World Heritage coral reef. It is also the first time UNESCO has called directly on a country to undertake corrective climate change actions.
Credit : Earth Justice
Picture Credit : Google
Leave a Reply