Earlier this month, Australia’s Big Four banks copped a serve over their support of the coal and gas extraction industries, focusing attention on the ways large banks' investment decisions can put the…
Will the Great Barrier Reef be declared ‘In Danger’? We’ll have to wait until next year to find out.
AAP Image/Catlin Seaview Survey
UNESCO, the body that lists world heritage areas, continues to express extreme disquiet about the state of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area. But it has now postponed to February 2014 consideration…
Queensland’s proposed port developments threaten the state’s important northern wetlands, the reef’s first line of defence.
Rex Boggs
UNESCO has released its latest report on the state of the Great Barrier Reef, and has once again raised concerns about excessive port development along the coast, and the state of water quality around…
Incidents of major agricultural run-off, like the recent Queensland floods, certainly affect Great Barrier Reef water quality, but systems are in place to reduce their effect.
AAP Image/Twitter, ISS, Chris Hadfield
The Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is both a national marine park and a World Heritage Area. But next to the reef, a catchment of 400,000km2 is almost completely developed for agriculture, predominantly beef…
Neither the Federal nor the Queensland Governments are doing what’s required to save the Great Barrier Reef.
AAP Image/Greenpeace, Dean Sewell
The Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area is clearly in danger. But will UNESCO bite the bullet and officially declare it so?
UNESCO acknowledges that the property is iconic. It is the world’s largest…
UNESCO’s warning has done little to turn Australia’s coal development around.
Peter Asquith
Australia has delivered an updated report on the state of conservation in the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) that tip-toes around the politically charged issue of constraining major port expansions on the Queensland…
Do you value this? The Energy White Paper doesn’t.
Green MPs
Burn it all. That is the plan in Australia’s new Energy White Paper.
Released yesterday by Resources and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson, it talks about responding to climate change while planning the…
The Queensland government has weakened environmental regulations to get more development along the coast.
John Harvey
The Newman-led Liberal-National Party (LNP) government in Queensland is aiming to boost economic growth by focusing on development in four areas; agriculture, tourism, mining and residential/commercial…
Killing starfish one by one is no long-term solution.
Paul Cizek
A recent report on coral loss from the Great Barrier Reef has pointed the finger at cyclones and Crown of Thorns starfish. The real culprit is human activity, and until we reduce port activity and pollution…
The Great Barrier Reef may be huge and long-lived, but without intervention it’s in serious trouble.
Landfeldt/Flickr
There is a myth about Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, that goes like this: because it is so big, biodiverse, so well-managed and generally bloody awesome, the GBR is immune to climate change and other…
Quarries and quandaries: Australia’s natural splendour is a major source of income, yet it sits uncomfortably with mining’s spread.
AAP/Fantasea Adventure Cruising
Australia has built a strong global brand based on its iconic natural beauty. For example, the new Australia Tourism campaign, “There’s nothing like Australia”, features icons like the Kimberley, Uluru…
Sanctuary: marine parks can create new ways to prevent illegal fishing.
Mia Hoogenboom, ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University
Environment Minister Tony Burke announced the final proposed Commonwealth marine protected area (MPA) network last month. The network would be the largest in the world, covering more than a third of Commonwealth…
A bund wall surrounds the Fishermans Landing Wharf expansion in Gladstone.
AAP/Dave Hunt
The sealing of a leak of dredge spoil (harbour-bottom scooped up and dumped in a landfill area) in a bund wall in Gladstone harbour was announced on 25th of June by the Gladstone Ports Corporation. Scientists…
The announcement of a marine park network is unlikely to calm the worries of Great Barrier Reef conservation groups.
AAP/Greenpeace
Today’s announcement of a network of marine parks for Australia is a big step forward in marine conservation. However, major threats to one iconic marine area, the Great Barrier Reef, are land-based…
Networks of nature: a potato cod with striped cleaner wrasse at Osprey Reef, an area in the expanded marine reservations announced today.
Flickr/richard ling
Today’s announcement of a national network of marine parks is really a memorable day for Australian nature conservation.
The political rhetoric and self-congratulation associated with major events is…
Minister Tony Burke is slowing down coal development in Queensland, but there’s more to it than saving turtles.
Landfeldt/Flickr
The halt in the Alpha Coal Project approval process shows the Commonwealth is taking very seriously UNESCO’s recent report threatening downgrading the status of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area…
Can a booming coal industry and a Heritage-Listed reef co-exist?
AAP/Dave Hunt
Last Friday the World Heritage Centre and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) released a report on the state of the Great Barrier Reef, the world’s largest World Heritage Property…
Another wave is coming: the coral-killing crown of thorns starfish.
Flickr/<SLIM>
The Great Barrier Reef is under attack from a range of enemies including climate change effects (coral bleaching, increased severe storms, and ocean acidification), pollutant discharge from the land, coastal…
How Queenslanders vote may affect parts of the Great Barrier Reef such as Heron Island.
AAP/Heron Island
Queensland is different from other states in that it only has a lower house. In other states minor parties achieve representation in upper houses — and therefore have a role in government — through proportional…
UNESCO is reviewing whether more needs to be done to preserve the reef’s heritage listing.
AAP
Obtaining a World Heritage listing for a national asset is a source of great pride for any country. The Taj Mahal (1983), Borobudur (1991) and Uluru (2007) are examples where countries have obtained the…
Mass bleaching at the Keppel Islands in 2006. Our greatest natural asset is under threat, but you wouldn’t know it from reading Andrew Bolt.
Ove Hoegh-Guldberg
MEDIA & DEMOCRACY – Ove Hoegh-Guldberg dives into the media’s coverage of an Australian icon’s future.
One of the most straightforward climate change storylines is the link between global warming…
