The World Heritage Committee of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) decided not to include the famous Great Barrier Reef (Australia) on the list of endangered sites.
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| Bleaching events and global warming have caused significant damage to the Great Barrier Reef. (Source: CNN) |
This decision has caused many scientists to speak out because there is a lot of scientific evidence showing that coral reefs are at risk of mass “bleaching” because the coral will die, leaving only limestone skeletons by next summer.
At a meeting in Paris on July 31, the World Heritage Committee said that although the reef's removal from the endangered list showed that the Australian government had made "significant progress", the reef was still under "serious threat" from climate change and pollution.
Accordingly, the Committee believes that "sustainable actions are needed to implement recommendations to improve the long-term resilience of the reef" and requires the Australian government to report back with an update before February 1 next year - the peak of summer in Australia.
Serious concern
Even so, scientists say there is little prospect of a dramatic improvement in the bleaching situation just six months from now, especially as the onset of El Niño warms the oceans.
“A lot of climate scientists are shocked that the Great Barrier Reef isn’t on the list,” Kimberley Reid from the Centre for Climate Extremes at Monash University in Australia told CNN .
“With current policies and emissions, the world is seeing the decline of at least 99% of global coral reefs and if something doesn’t ‘make a big deal’ I’m not sure what will happen,” Mr Reid stressed.
Covering nearly 345,000 square kilometres, the Great Barrier is home to more than 1,500 species of fish and 411 species of coral, contributing billions of dollars to the Australian economy each year, strongly promoting tourism to one of the greatest natural wonders of Australia and the world.
Since the UNESCO World Heritage Committee first listed the reef as “in danger” in 2021, the Australian government has been working to show it is a careful “custodian”.
Australian Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek told reporters on August 1 that she made no apologies for lobbying to remove the Great Barrier Reef from the “dangerous” list.
“This lobbying tells the truth about what we are doing,” Ms Plibersek said, listing major environmental policies the Labor government has implemented since taking power in Australia in 2022, including spending millions of dollars to improve water quality and manage coral reefs, measures to reduce planet-warming pollution, setting emissions targets and electrifying homes.
The Great Barrier Reef suffered severe “mass bleaching” in 2016, 2017 and 2020, as the world continued to burn fossil fuels, warming the planet and increasing ocean temperatures.
Another “bleaching” in 2022, the first to occur during a La Niña (the opposite of El Niño), raises serious concerns about its future and the country’s management plan.
Much work to do
In a draft decision on July 31, the World Heritage Committee said the reef had made “some recovery” since the previous bleaching and that populations of some important coral species were increasing or becoming more stable.
The World Heritage Committee commended the Australian government’s actions but recommended more needed to be done to improve water quality and “strengthen the Reef 2050 Plan, including clear government commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions”.
Ms Plibersek said the Australian government was well aware that more needed to be done to protect not only the reef but also the thousands of Australians whose jobs depended on it. “No one takes the protection of the reef more seriously than we do. I am delighted that it has been recognised by the international community,” she said.
Jodie Rummer, professor of marine biology at James Cook University, said the world faced a serious threat from climate change not only to the Great Barrier Reef but also to other places around the world. “We need to phase out fossil fuels and replace them as quickly as possible this decade,” she said.
While removing the Great Barrier Reef from the “danger list”, UNESCO also recommended that several other sites be added to the list, such as Venice, one of Italy’s most popular and “fragile” tourist destinations.
Venice is one of 1,157 World Heritage Sites recognised as places of cultural or natural value of “outstanding universal value”. UNESCO is now calling on the Italian government to do its utmost to address long-standing problems in Venice, which has struggled for years with overtourism and the impacts of climate change.
Placing world heritage sites on the “danger list” allows the World Heritage Committee to immediately deploy appropriate response measures, while alerting the international community to the existing situations and challenges, in the hope that countries can participate in conservation efforts.
Some Unesco world heritage sites in danger:
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